Of Sues and Slayers
by AlltheAces
Summary: A writing exercise of mine from way back when - I apologize in advance for any bleeding eyes that may result. Summary: She should have known that her new gig would have backfired spectacularly. At least the association assured her she would have workman's benefits. And dental. Don't forget the dental... A Sue-slaying fic.
1. Chapter 1

_Hiss-Squeak-Ssshhha!_

A scared-looking individual appeared in the middle of a plain metal room. Glancing around to make sure he was safe, he put his hands on his face and began to wail.

"The horror! Oh, the sparkles, the thick, cliché,_ luscious_ hair-!"

Finally getting his sentiments of his latest mission off of his chest, the poor boy collapsed in a dead faint near the middle of the room, cracking his head against the steel floor in the process. A door opened, and two medics in surgical masks and hospital scrubs walked into the room, a stretcher between them. Placing the stretcher on the floor, one stooped down and attempted to diagnose the category of trauma before moving the victim as the other stood behind. Nodding and backing up, the trainee relayed his diagnosis.

"Johnny again. Hit full on with Sparkly. I'm surprised that he could even make a coherent sentence."

The second medic nodded to himself. Picking up Johnny on the stretcher, who was mumbling and rocking side-to-side, they turned and wheeled the boy through the automatic door on the left to the medic bay.

In an adjacent room, a harried-looking eighteen year old girl turned away from the one-way window and sighed as she placed another checkmark on the list lying on the desk in front of her. She clicked the red pen closed, scanning over the names that were not 'marked' in red or black. Seven were still out in the field. The girl moved back to the chair in front of the window and waited for the stragglers to come in, pushing a strand of black hair behind her ear.

_Hiss-Squeak-Ssshhha!_

A jet-black portal appeared in the middle of the room once again, and the girl stood up expectantly. A pile of humanity fell through the plothole, coated with what appeared to be a fine layer of sea spray mingled with a spattering of shimmery sue-blood. The three kids untangled themselves from the heap and headed towards the rightmost door. The girl pulled out a black pen from the holder and checked four names off of the list. Those were three less casualties to take care of. Now for those who were missing…

Four more names unaccounted for. The girl frowned and turned back to the window, tapping her foot impatiently. Her hazel eyes narrowed behind the glasses she wore. The last two groups had some of the best veterans on it, and yet they still hadn't returned. What was keeping them?

_Hiss-Squeak-Ssshhha!_

As if summoned by her thoughts, two plotholes appeared simultaneously next to each other, three soaked girls jumping out of one single-file, while another drenched and bloodied figure fell out of the second hole and promptly lost his balance. Ooh, that was gonna bruise.

Checking off the remaining four names in black pen, the girl turned and left the office. Turning down the corridor, she moved past the Emergency Bay, coming to a stop in front of a room labeled 'Decontamination'. The survivors of the latest mission shuffled through the door, cleaned, exhausted, and nursing various (thankfully minor) cuts and bruises but otherwise were fine. She allowed herself a small smirk.

"Well done, troops. Debriefing will be delayed until tomorrow due to the amount of casualties. As you four are standing, I expect your reports by 0800 hours in one of my inboxes tomorrow."

Turning on her heel, she began walking towards her quarters, leaving two annoyed twins, one resigned veteran, and one confused newbie in her wake. One twin, who was sporting a near-perfect black eye, ecstatically grabbed the dazed newbie and dragged her back to the barracks. The other twin, displaying a split lip, exhaled and began to follow her sister, mentally debating the pros and cons of writing the report _later_ as opposed to now. The veteran tiredly rubbed his arm with several bite marks/deep scratches and made his way to the secondary Medbay for treatment. Silence once again reigned in the hall, occasionally broken by a soft whimper or quiet groan from the Emergency Bay.

* * *

"… and so, the Sue turned to me and was about to- oh, hey there sis!"

The twin with a split lip stood in the doorway, looking mildly disoriented. The beds and table that had been arranged in an orderly manner before she had left on the mission had been moved. Now, the beds were in a plus-shaped pattern, foot end towards the inside, with a four- sided table in the center of the arrangement. This table was currently being used as a manicure area for the first twin; her nail polish bottles littered the floor and practically coated the spare fourth bed. The last bed remained litter-free. The only person standing began to turn an unhealthy shade of purple as she leveled an impressive glare at her oh-so-innocent sister.

"You. Will. Die."

"Uwaah!"

The first twin dived under the bed she was sitting on, while the second twin practically sailed through the air at the former position of her sibling. The newbie squeaked and scrambled backwards, falling over the side of her bed and scurrying to a far corner. The second twin fell on the bed bouncing slightly on the springs as she reached down and grabbed the long brown hair of the first, pulling hard and unearthing the girl from underneath her bed.

"_UNCLE! UNCLE! I GIVE! I WON'T TOUCH YOUR STUFF! OR YOUR BED! PLEASE PUT ME DOWN! OWOWOW!_"

Nodding contentedly to herself, the second twin released the hold she had on her sister and turned to the clean bed. She shoved it back towards the only unadorned wall in the room, positioning the headboard near the far wall. Without looking at the opposite occupied corner, she sighed.

"I told you earlier Jan, if you're bunking with us, you have to get used to it. We don't drag innocent bystanders into our little spats. Usually." Jan stood up out of the corner, attempting to straighten her frizzy shoulder-length blond hair and failing.

"That's _so_ reassuring. I almost saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw what you two did out on the field to those plot bunnies and that one crossover Stu with your nunchacku. Self-preservation 'n all that jazz."

The second twin smirked. "Well, you'd better get used to it. Commander obviously believes you could at least keep up with us since she put you here, and _I_ know _she_ knows better than to assign us someone who would lose it at the first sign of blood…" The first twin made a frustrated noise from her seat on the floor.

"Katy! Be nice to the newbie!"

"Oh stop it Bree, I'm just telling her the facts."

Bree glared at her identical twin from her near-completely obstructed vantage point on the floor. Katy's blue eyes glowered stoically back. Jan cleared her throat, effectively breaking the staring match.

"Um, what about the report…?"

"Oh. That." Katy muttered.

Bree picked herself off of the floor and moved to the computer embedded in the right-hand wall. Booting up the typing program, she slouched on the chair, waiting for the software to load. Katy, on the other hand, took out a notebook and pen from her locker in the left wall and moved to her bed. She propped her pillow up, leaned back, and began to write. Jan looked at these two methods with some confusion, and eventually settled for taking her notebook and pencil out of her locker as well. Moving to the table, she sat on the foot of her bed and began to write out what had happened to her in the last five hours.

* * *

_Hiss-Squeak-Ssshhha!_

With a _whoosh_, the newly made team of three fell through the plothole and began to trek their way through Deep Jungle of the Kingdom Hearts universe.

The sky was overcast today, perfect weather for hunting Sues, since the badly written ones needed perfect sunshine to function while the slightly better written ones merely slightly broke up the cloud cover over their scene. It was also decent weather for Stus because of the need of a storm to rescue whatever hapless canon female characters were there. However, this weather was absolutely horrendous for hunting bad 'black' plot bunnies (these kinds of plot bunnies which, unlike the regular 'good' plot bunnies, always ensured the arrival of a new Sue or Stu in the near future) because of their natural camouflage (they always hid in the shadows, tricking the mind into believing that they are not there whilst subtly manipulating the writer's ideas for the worst case scenario – creating a Sue and/or Stu).

So, our team had remained in a single-file formation, trying to sneak through the least-densely packed foliage without making too much noise – Sues were infamous for their enhanced senses – or drawing attention to ourselves from the natives. Bree spoke up.

"Jan, remember our objectives – look for various OC's, some causing major OOC-ness in a Canon or three-"

"-Or signs of that Canon-Stu that was reported earlier-"

"-And whatever you do-"

"-Don't die!" The twins whispered in unison as they stared ahead, the now clear sky causing sunlight to glint off of the zippers on their dark grey uniforms.

It was time.

"Garlic spray!"

Three aerosol cans whipped out in a practiced motion, the preferred weapon of the individual held in the other hand. The twins focused on garlicking their nunchacku, while I pulled out my handgun and loaded the specially-made garlic-filled ammunition into the magazine. Keeping the aerosol held in my other hand; I looked up as the twins finished coating their array of throwing knives.

"It just occurred to me, how come the Sues don't smell this?"

Katy considered, then decided to sate my curiosity. "Most suethors can't seem to wrap their minds around an extremely complex concept known only by the realm of 'true' authors; 'smell'."

"Ah."

The trio made its way to an utterly cliché clearing, where they came upon a Sue, known to the world of fanfiction as Rayneyako Faynorii no Jakeshii, the red eyed, red haired master of all shadows and twi-

The intro to this horrendous product of writing was abruptly cut off as a garlicked throwing knife cut into the Sue's shoulder, causing her to gasp dramatically as the garlic began eating way at her perfect form. She looked at the Slayers, tears brimming in her large eyes that were as red as sunsets.

"Oh! Yuo al' lik, r not supposta li, totlly sriosly, not do tha-t, lik, yea1!1! I 'm not, lik, du-un, with, laik, mai intro1!11!11" She breathed softly, somehow heard throughout the clearing. (1) The Sue fluttered her lacy-long eyelashes as she swayed, perfectly poised to fall forward dramatically, prepared to wait for Sora to save her.

Then the moment was broken as a garlicked nunchacku fell on the crown of the poorly written Sue, passing through the product of poor writing like a hot knife through butter. The Sue began to scream and evaporate, and within a few moments nothing but a white mist remained where the Sue once stood. The cloud cover overhead rapidly closed in response, seeming to sigh in relief. I blinked and stared at the landscape, mesmerized at how the forest seemed to unwrap from itself from the sudden release of the strain of the Sue. Holes, fallen trees, and scattered rotting things popped out of the ground so that the clearing was no longer, well, a clearing. Distant twitters and howls made themselves apparent once again.

Bree grinned. "Nice."

A red card flew out of the Sue-mist, heading straight towards Katy. Not even looking up from reapplying garlic spray to her nunchacku, she reached out and grabbed the card before it could bean her. Flipping it over, she began reading the back.

"What's that?"

She looked at me strangely, still spraying the garlic onto her weapon. "They didn't tell you in the academy?"

I just stayed quiet.

The twin began muttering some uncomplimentary things under her breath about a _certain_ board of education _just not having enough sense_ to cram in a certain area. I sighed, rubbing a wayward gnat out of my eye. Darn this jungle.

"Would you care to explain, then?"

She decided to have pity on me. "It's a stat card. While the mission briefing usually gives us most of the information about the Sues that we are supposed to be eliminating, this proves that we were able to defeat the thing. It also tells us the penname of who made the Sue, and what purpose _it_," here she gestured at the fading haze, "was supposed to complete in the storyline."

Bree chimed in. "It also gives a picture. It's quite useful for the monthly betting pool on who encountered the worst original creation."

Katy turned back to the card. '_Potential tri-keyblade wielder of the In-Between Worlds and the Castle that Never Was_'.

"Pphbt. I'm just glad that I could destroy this piece of cow dung before it fully matured…"

She threw the card into one of the many pockets on her cargo pants and moved on.

* * *

-Three hours later-

After running into two more weak Sues and one wise!Stu, (which was dispatched as quickly as possible as soon as it was discovered to be part of a yoai fic, to the utter disgust of the trio) we fell into a nest of plot bunnies.

"Black. [censored]. Plot. Bunnies."

Well said, Katy. I couldn't do better.

After that battle, I can never look at that rabbit pelt I had in my old room the same way ever again.

One hour later-

"Whoo, I'm beat."

I flopped down on a log and reached back to my pack, pulling out a protein bar and munching contentedly. A twin looked at her watch, nodded, and then followed my example. The other twin, after scanning the sky to ensure that no Stus or Sues were about to come along and sunburn us in their perfection or drench us in rain, flopped down on the ground and took out her garlic spray. A few quiet minutes passed, where the only sound was the humidity-muffled ambience of the jungle and the occasional slurp from a canteen.

We had finished dispatching the plot bunnies about ten minutes ago- it was a huge nest- and received a list of crossovers from the resultant vapor that the vermin would have spawned. It was quite impressive. Whoever had the idea of sticking Roxas in the Rosario+Vampire universe should be shot.

With garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. Mmmm… Then slow roasted…

Bree had turned to look at her sister, who was absorbed in the information on the list. Then she spotted a movement behind her.

"Katy! Down!"

The other twin dove forward as Bree threw a garlicked blade into the bushes, where the satisfying squeal of a dark plot bunny met their ears. Bree strode past the bushes and kicked aside a large log to reveal a cowering plot bunny that was starting to convulse in its death throes from the knife in its side. Bree slowly twisted the knife and yanked it out, causing a scream of anguish from the bunny as blood began to gush from the wound. Reorienting the blade, she rammed it into its right eye socket. The bunny thrashed violently for a few moments, then stilled. Bree retrieved her blade and cleaned it on the grass, returning it to her pouch.

I stared, shocked at the brutal display of violence from the twin that I had thought was the gentler of the two. She ignored me and moved back to her pack, pulling out a granola bar with her clean hand. Sitting down, she began munching it thoughtfully, wiping the remaining blood from her hand onto the grass next to her. I put away my protein bar, slightly nauseous.

Three minutes later we broke camp and gathered all our trash – wouldn't want to leave some 'shiny things' for the little canon characters to choke on – and began to trek towards the coordinates of our destination.

We splashed through shallow ponds of standing water, barely escaping an encounter with some mutated mosquitoes that had decided we could pass as appetizers. During the fight, the twins and I had found that the department had decided to give me a lock-on feature for my first stint in the real world. This had, thankfully, made our job much easier. When we finished, and the various bits of shredded wing and exoskeleton settled, I was told that I was basically given a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card. Thus, I would have to start relying on my own marksmanship skills the next time we were sent out.

I subsequently made a mental note to find the firing range as soon as I got back to HQ.

* * *

"So… Where do the Sues go after they're killed?" I had mused aloud.

Bree and Kate paused in their eating and stared at me.

We had stopped some twenty minutes back. The twins had begun bickering a while ago and had eventually deduced that it was from their empty stomachs, consequently deciding to stop for lunch. This announcement was met with gratitude and relief on my part (they both were beginning to finger their throwing knives affectionately while glaring at each other). Now, we were sitting on a freshly-fallen tree, sated, and making plans to move out. Until I had spoken up, that is.

"…Something on my face?"

The both shook their heads 'no' simultaneously and continued staring.

I shifted uncomfortably, embarrassed.

One of the twins sighed. "Now, I'm officially worried about what information the average student in the Academy is given now…" The other twin shook her head sadly.

"Could you fill in the gaps for me, then?" The twin on the left shrugged.

"Might as well if we're gonna be working together for the next three years." She put down her canteen and rolled her shoulders, causing them to pop and me to wince.

"The Sues and Stus, once defeated, are usually sent to one or two popular information dumps collectively known as '' or 'deviant ', where they and the suethors are free to meddle in the limitless number of pocket universes provided, thus leaving the original timeline untouched. This gives authors a chance to change their ways and start writing soundly, or to stop writing because, well, they just can't."

Here she paused; attention captured by a buzzing gnat cluster that had materialized on the other side of the clearing. The other twin, Katy, took over.

"However, sometimes we can't stop them all and they begin to interfere in the canon plotline. This is part of the origin of the dreaded 'writer's block' and subsequently, delays in new releases in the canonverses. Yes, plot bunnies do cause creative buildup. Also, there is the threat of original manuscripts and data being damaged from the meddlers. Until most obstacles are eliminated, good progress will halt until removal is complete. But if a series has finished completely, the new Stu or Sue is _usually_ automatically placed in the information dumps. Thankfully, that means that us Slayers won't have to clean up that canonverse for a while."

Well, this was news to me. I felt my eyebrow twitch as I realized that this was basic information that I should have been briefed on.

"And they didn't cover this in Academy, _why_?"

"Probably to let the people on the other side of the fourth wall understand what's going on. It gets quite irritating for us, though."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be. After all, we were like that, once."

Silence descended upon the group once more, allowing us to hear a perfectly placed dramatic rumble in the distance. Katy perked up, gathering her various scattered items. I followed suit, curious as to what could make her attitude do a one-eighty in such a short amount of time without the liberal application of chocolate. Bree squealed as she heard another rumble, somewhat closer.

"Ooh! Katy, Katy! Do I get the first hit in this time?"

"Only if you get there first."

And with that, the two crazies began running towards the source of the disturbance, leaving me blinking stupidly at their rapidly vanishing dust cloud.

_How did they even do that with the humidity? No, wait, when did Bree get her pack on her shoulder?_

"H-hey! Wait for me!"

* * *

I landed at chaos.

Tall trees lay across the ground, felled by the howling wind. The sky boiled as it struggled to keep up with the demands of the yet to be seen Stu, pouring sheets upon buckets of rain that lowered visibility to about ten feet. The wind occasionally blew rain sideways or even upwards as the sky exhausted all of its moisture and had to pull it from the ground below to keep from collapsing. Debris flew everywhere, occasionally dragging a helpless Slayer or two with it, their screams echoing out into the night and cutting off as some emergency plotholes activated. I did my best to keep low, traveling toward the sound of one of the twin's war cries as they whaled away at the Stu.

Scuttling closer, I was treated to a view of a Stu-created amphitheater, since a simple clearing just wouldn't cut it for _this_ narcissist, oh no.

The Stu was surrounded by three people who seemed to be on their last legs, two inexperienced newbies lucky enough to be standing despite the onslaught, and four fresh veterans, the twins included in their number.

The Canon-Stu was a thing of art, as far as most go. It had a semi-transparent image of Roxas fighting the Slayers superimposed over a really short boy with oily brown hair, zits erupting over his face, and thick black glasses covering dull muddy eyes sitting on an adjustable roller chair (it was interesting to note that the boy was so tiny, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion-wielding copy completely covered the writer, the nerd). He was busy typing away commands to the behemoth that he had accidentally created, blissfully unaware of the chaos he was causing. His greasy forehead furrowed in concentration as the plot bunny lodged deeper in his mind. Frustrated that I could not easily locate the position of the evil rabbit, I whipped out my can of garlic spray and leaped into the fray, pressing the trigger.

Three things happened simultaneously.

One, Stu-Roxas turned away from me, leaving his back wide open to the fetid cloud I had sent his way.

Two, a sudden gust of wind picked up directly in front of me, blowing the green-tan cloud of vaporized garlic back to its point of origin (me, for those who couldn't figure it out).

Three, Stu-Roxas unconsciously shifted to a reverse-handed grip (not used in any of the games he was in, I might add), causing the _really_ pointy-points of Oathkeeper to fly straight at my head.

Ducking to prevent possible permanent sight loss, deep scarring, or decapitation, I lost my can of spray garlic in my desperate attempt to duck and avoid Severe Pain. Fortunately for the Slayers, the Stu was so fast he had immersed the end of his keyblade in the cloud flying over my head before it completely dispersed. This caused the blade to dissolve impressively in a cloud of white sparkles as it encountered the garlic, concurrently totaling his ability to use wide-range or healing-type spells due to its now unusable magic-boosting stats.

Yes, this nerd had created a super-Stu, but it was a nerd who had created a super-Stu that had done his research. Or he just played video games all day and couldn't write his way around a whit's end.

Anyways, the four veteran Slayers identified the Stu's sudden weakness, long experience causing them to back off, circling like sharks as they pulled out their cans of garlic spray. The Stu (or the now-desperate plot bunny) noticed his ranged attacks had become unusable and decided to pour on the speed, using the blunt side of Oblivion to pummel soundly the two Slayers that couldn't get out of the way. I was able to back away to the edge of the amphitheater's arena before the Stu reached me. Some emergency plotholes appeared, sucking each airborne Slayer to safety.

Five people remained. Sometime between where the Stu had KO'ed my comrades I had joined the circle around the Stu, the veterans holding their various weapons and cans of spray at the ready. I pulled out my gun, sparing half of my attention for a few moments to make sure the magazine was full. That done, I focused again on the Stu, weapon held up and poised to fire.

At some point, the circle had stopped, well, circling. Stu-Roxas stood in the exact middle of the formation, turning around slowly and staring at each of us in turn. It was rather creepy. His head turned exactly 75 degrees to stare at each person, his body staying in one place before following his head by jerking to the next Slayer. He continued like this around the circle, maintaining his tempo perfectly for a few minutes. Irritated, one of the twins shot a _look_ at her sister, the other glancing back and nodding in return just before the Stu turned to look at her. When the Stu turned its creepy stare onto the brown-haired boy next to me, they leapt into action.

Bewildered at the boldness of the twins, the Stu quickly blocked the first strike from the first nunchuck. Its keyblade sizzled as it came in contact with the coating of garlic oil, giving off a light haze of dark smoke. Just as the Stu had reached forwards to counterattack, the second twin slid behind the Stu and began spraying away onto its unprotected back. The resulting screech from the Stu caused the two remaining veterans to shoot forward into the brawl. I was able to catch a glimpse of their weapons; the brown-haired boy was wielding a short katana, while a spear was in the black-haired girl's hand. The Stu's sword arm became a blur as it attempted to block four fighters at once, but was able to hold his own for the time being. I stood back, seeing as I didn't have any close-range weaponry.

"Use your lock-on, Jan!"

The yell from one of the twins snapped me out of my observer's trance, causing me to drop down into a crouch, my training guiding my aim towards the left side of the Stu's head. A tracker flickered into my vision over where the shot would land. Unfortunately, I pulled the trigger just as the Stu moved his elbow in front of his temple in an extremely unnecessary and flashy movement, the overall effect being that it blocked the area where my shot would have gone. But on the plus side, the garlic-core ammunition hit the Stu's arm and effectively disabled it. It also had the added benefit of shocking the Stu into a complete stop.

Gasping dramatically, the Stu clutched its arm and staggered, attempting to fall forward with a grace that would have been unnatural considering that it was supposed to be untrained in the art of dancing. It was met halfway to the ground with a garlicked katana. The brown haired boy grimaced and yanked upwards, tearing through the ribcage of the Stu and causing a huge amount of sparkly blood with acrid black smoke to billow out. The Stu's shrill scream of pain was cut off abruptly as two nunchacku and a spear butt bludgeoned the Stu into unconsciousness. The four Slayers stood back and allowed the garlic to finish its work. The corpse finished dissolving into a cloud of black smoke, hovering in the center of the amphitheatre. The wind caused by the Stu began to die down rapidly. The strained sky creaked and released the accumulated moisture in an abrupt deluge, completely soaking through the Slayers' 'waterproof' jackets.

Five black and white checkered plastic cards shot out of the Stu-cloud which had unexplainably remained in the center of the clearing. Mine hit me in the arm before I could catch it, corner first.

Ow.

I looked at the innocent piece of plastic, the face of Stu-Roxas smiling stupidly back at me.

Name: Roxas (Male)

Breed: Canon-Stu

Abilities: All abilities known after 385/2 Days, always knows when and where to be, yadda yadda yadda, standard Sue abilities. You know the list. If not, then you should be back at the Academy, moron.

Background: Same as in-game. If you don't know, then find a certified Canonologist to explain it to you. On second thought, if you are not familiar with the canonology AT ALL, you shouldn't be Sue Slaying in this universe anyways.

Author: xxxXXXxxxXXX (Male)

Purpose: Slightly modified Canon character used for a joyride through the Kingdom Hearts Universe, although he could have just as easily done the same thing by playing his game at home, inconsiderate brat.

Victors: Bree, Kate, Jan, Andre, Jackie

EPV: 100

The bottom of the card had a small insignia, block letters reading 'KH' with a single unadorned keyblade over the script.

Wow, that was… enlightening. Who knew a single card could be so insulting?

"They're all like that."

I jumped and whipped my arms out in a flailing circle, nearly catching the brown-haired boy on the nose. He backed away, hands held up in the universal 'don't kill me' gesture, grinning. I stopped, realizing what I was doing and quickly let my arms fall, my face heating up.

The boy laughed at the shade I was turning, dropping his hands and walking towards me again, acting like this happened to him all the time.

On second thought, that might not be too far from the truth.

He stepped nest to me and looked at the card looked at the card I still held in my hand, letting out a low whistle.

"EPV one hundred, huh? Guess that must be for your shot back there…"

Understandably, I was quite confused at this remark, and asked him to explain. He inquired whether I was a newbie, and I replied that it was my first time out in the field. He nodded sagely.

"Well, the card gives you an Experience Point Value, EPV for short, based on your performance while slaying the Sue. Most are only worth up to fifty points, but that one was half-decently written." He pulled his card from his pocket. "Here it says I got one-forty, and I had the killing blow. Lucky you."

"I've been told that a lot today."

"Ah, yes. Beginner's Fortune. Who're you teamed up with?" I pointed to the twins. He nodded and looked back at me, eyebrow unconsciously quirked.

"Well they say that luck always balances itself out. I can guarantee that Fate will be smiling on you while you're on the job for quite a while yet."

"Why? They can't be that bad."

"Oh yes, yes they can."

_Hiss-Squeak-Ssshhha!_

I looked up just in time to see the black-haired girl jump through a plothole, the end of her spear barely pulled through before it closed behind her. The twins walked back to me, apparently done gathering their scattered throwing knives. One seemed about to talk to me, but changed her mind as soon as she recognized who was standing next to me.

"Hey, Andre! Haven't seen you around for a while! Been lost in the Twilight fandom or something?"

Andre winced and rubbed his neck.

"Yep. Don't remind me. I almost broke down crying as soon as I returned to HQ."

The twins laughed. I just stood there, looking lost. The twin spoke up again.

"So, you two seem to have gotten to know each other while we were talking to Missy Prissy over there." She jerked her thumb over to where the plothole had been. I nodded, turning back to the now-dubbed Andre.

"Sorry for not introducing myself sooner. Name's Jan." I extended a hand, which Andre shook firmly.

"Andrew, known to friends as Andre. But you already knew that." I shrugged noncommittally, the conversation coming to a halt. Then the rumbling started.

"Jan, get over here!"

Hurrying over behind the twins, the ground gave a huge buck and started to groan. A twin opened a plothole and hopped through, followed by her sister. I was able to make it through just before the earth flung itself upwards to its original position with an audible 'twang'. Dirt and leaves were flung into the sky as the surface snapped back to its original position like a bowstring.

* * *

Jan looked down at her report in satisfaction and folded it in half. Standing up, she walked over to her locker and placed it inside, next to her official Sue-Slayer jacket with its Association's logo proudly emblazoned across the arm. Locking the door, she made her way to her assigned bed and pushed it back towards its original position. Seeing that both Bree and Katy had finished their reports earlier and were squabbling in the bathroom, Jan sat on her bed and leaned against the wall.

She was asleep before the twins came back in the room, scrunched up on her side and drooling slightly on the bedspread.

* * *

(1) (Please excuse the author for a few moments as the author needs to find the nearest bathroom to puke in, - urp. *retching noises in background* [Please Stand By])

Ugh. *author wipes mouth with rag, gargles water and swallows some milk* I can't believe I just wrote that. Anyways, moving on…

Ah, first chapter-FINIS! Relief in a thousand ways that is too wonderful to express! I hope that those that read and found this fic worthwhile will review.


	2. Chapter 2

A doll lay in the middle of a table.

It was average-sized, by most standards. A bit less than a foot in length, its legs and arms were enveloped by a thin cape of sand-brown cloth. The head was covered with a sewed-on helmet; the red anime-styled eyes staring out of a framing of two purple stripes that ran along the edge of the face. The headgear was primarily black and yellow, pulled backwards into a shape that was vaguely reminiscent of fish fins. There was a white diamond-shaped crest adorning the front.

It also had a very large needle stuck into the center of the forehead, with a huge number pushed into various points on the arms and legs that would have been either very painful, fatal, or an excruciating combination of both had the doll been alive and breathing.

"Katy?"

"Quiet, Jan."

Katy carefully turned over the doll that was unwillingly imitating a hedgehog and delicately pushed needle number two hundred seventy-one in the last major pressure point along its spine. Katy and I were seated in two _really_ comfortable rolling chairs at the bolted-down table in the middle of the room (1). Looking up, I could see that the digital readout over the door read 4:27 PM.

I brought my attention back to the morbidly fascinating display in front of me. I had been watching Katy poke holes in the doll, occasionally turning back to my gun to either disassemble or reassemble it during the past ten minutes. I was sitting in the bunks, having returned from an intense session of target practice earlier.

A thought began to form in my mind; something along the lines of _you_ _joined a freakin' nuthouse, Jan _but was forgotten before I could follow through with any logical reaction as Katy picked up a shiny little doodad off of the table.

She gleefully clicked the button on and off, causing Bree, who sitting on the bed to my right, to whip her head back and forth in tandem with the randomly appearing red dot. Finally getting bored with playing with my new laser sight, Katy turned it off one last time and threw it onto my bed, positioned behind her. Choosing not to comment on the weirdness that I had just witnessed, I followed suit with my now-reassembled gun, aiming for my pillow. It bounced, hitting the wall and falling under the bed. Being too lazy to get up and fix my mistake, I ignored this and turned my attention back to the table.

All of the beds were back to how they were positioned originally, one against each wall with Katy's bed behind me and mine to my left. The fourth bed had mysteriously disappeared the other day, but no one seemed overly concerned about it. I looked up at Katy, who was staring at the doll intently.

"Katy?"

She jumped and glared up at me, inconsiderately broken out of her torture-trance.

"_What_?"

"Why do you do that?"

"It's fun." I looked back at the limp doll in her hands and felt a muted sort of pity for it.

"And you learned how to do this," here I gestured at the pincushion "…_because_?"

Her response was immediate. "Best spots to hit with a nunchacku. Cause instant stunning pain that can turn the tide of a fight or deep internal bruising that will slow down the enemy _and_ come back to bite them in the butt later, if they're lucky enough to escape from my Spanky."

"Spanky?" _She did say 'my', but she couldn't really have named… _

The twin beamed, and patted her nunchacku that was resting next to her seat.

I slowly scooted away from her.

She chose not to notice my reaction, instead looking over the doll for any spots she missed and swiftly corrected any mistakes. Standing up, she took out a fishhook on a six-inch loop of string and carefully poked it into the back of the doll, between two larger-than normal needles. This done, she opened her locker and hung the doll inside, alongside a number of other dolls which had received the same treatment. I stared, appalled, at the sheer amount of characters, some identifiable only because they were at the front of the cache. Kurosaki Ichigo from Bleach. Mewtwo from Pokémon. Superman from DC Comics. That one girl from Sailor Moon. And, oddly, Demyx from Kingdom Hearts.

When inquiring about the last one, she shortly replied that it was payback for the hour spent fighting his water clones. I wisely did not ask her to elaborate on whether it was a Stu or just the video game.

We were in our bunks and not fighting Sues today because of an incident during our 'routine' patrol yesterday. We had been dispatched by HQ to reestablish the barrier between the Canon realm and the world of fanfiction. The Slayer's Alliance had received a tip from one of our outposts that Sue activity had been congregating at one point at the 'wall', thus weakening the barrier of words and digital code. In short, we just had to rewrite part of the firewall that had been erased, and spray some garlic around the fixed hole as a deterrent. No biggie.

But the Sues decided that they needed to cause unneeded drama in our lives _right then_ by breaking through the section we were supposed to be repairing. We were delayed one hour past the recommended time limit, but thankfully were able to return before we experienced any serious consequences.

Wait, back up. Recommended time limit, you say? You just can't stay in a canonverse/fandom as long as you like without consequences, you say? Why, yes I do. Let me dig out my trusty Slayer guidebook here…

…

…

Um…

…

…

…

AHA! Found you!

…

… Oh, you're waiting for me to read it to you! I forgot that you can't read over my shoulder…

Ahem, it says here that, "due to the undue stress that a plothole generator puts on someone's mind and body- you ARE being forced to live in another UNIVERSE after all- the recommended time limit for staying in an alternate universe is five hours, with a rest period of twenty-four hours in between. The longer you spend in there, the longer you have to wait to recover, according to the in-'n-out-verse square law…" Huh?

…Moving on.

"Staying in a canonverse two hours over the limit led to mild nausea and occasionally vomiting in the test subje- erm, people that suffer from severe motion sickness. Three hours over will mean persistent dizziness (you will definitely see your lunch again). Three and a half hours will lead to the above symptoms and a severe bloody nose. Four hours, and you probably have passed out from the pain - good luck trying to get back to HQ now. Four hours and forty-five minutes; you wake up with a headache of hangover- like intensity, but you won't be able to get help from your comrades since you will be preoccupied by the excess blood you are vomiting - ATTENTION (this has been added since we lost one Slayer due to inaction) if you are functional and find an idiot in this state, you need to get them to the nearest REAL hospital as soon as possible - not the one at HQ manned by Medic Academy Graduates.

And last but not least, Five hours means… YOU'RE DEAD. Your scant belongings will be fought over by your roommates, and as soon as your corpse is located and retrieved your parents or guardians will be notified that you met your demise in an unfortunate sport - or building collapse related- accident, depending on your interests documented in your file. Enjoy the afterlife, sucker."

There are some footnotes here…

"BTW, if you are found in a near-death state and recover, when you go in to be court-marshaled your defense can't consist of 'a Sue hurt me too badly to call for backup' or other such rot. If your arm has been severed, or your vital signs have indicated that you had been knocked into a deep coma by a Sue, we would have sent a team of trained individuals to evacuate you and your team out of there. Any injuries less than the ones described above are NOT acceptable reasons to be picked up.

This means you, Johnny.

Also, there is an excess amount of emergency plotholes planted in the canonverse in the extremely likely off-chance you get knocked flying. Ergo, you would have to have the luck of a Sue to miss one. No, we CAN'T track your wristwatches more than the symptoms above because of… interference."

So no, you can't live in the canonverse without dying. If you keep reading the pamphlet, it also mentions that when you turn eighteen, you can't return to the canonverses because of something or another involving 'author's plot devices' and 'autonomic permanent memory wipe from combined stress levels'. Anyhow, back to target practice.

We were told to take a break for the rest of the day and the next twenty-four hours for recovery. I was fine with this since I could sleep in, work on my accumulated homework, and get in some extra target practice.

Great plan, right?

* * *

Earlier today…

"…And I want you all to give it your best shot! Are! You! Ready!"

I stared, aghast at our "instructor" as he flipped backwards twice and did the splits, presumably showing his enthusiasm at teaching new students. I clutched my gun tighter to my person, glancing around to see how my peers were faring. They had white knuckled grips on their own weapons. He finished his routine in an impossibly bent yoga pose. His chest was on the ground, and his legs were tied into a pretzel over his back. Strangely, his arms both seemed to retain full mobility and was holding a Smith & Wesson.

I felt something whizz by my ear, blowing a few strands of my hair around and slamming into the back wall with a hollow _crack-_ing sound. I looked at the instructor with some surprise. He was holding up his gun, and it was aimed _right at me_.

All heck broke loose.

I dove behind a low metal table behind me, normally used for instruction of proper gun care. Jusi as I overturned it, I heard three more rounds thud into the top section of the square metal table. With despair, I spotted quite a few more dents in the reinforced metal. Apparently, this was a regular occurrence. Looking as far behind me as my position would allow, I saw that the rest of the class had ducked behind whatever cover available, from tipped lockers to tilted shoe cubbyholes to chairs and tables. I could hear the instructor cackling happily as he emptied his clip on us.

"What are you waiting for? Hit the targets behind me, or you're going to have to stay after one hour!"

A Slayer behind me yelped and whimpered behind his chair. A quick glance confirmed that one of those aforementioned shots had hit his exposed posterior. After quickly checking to make sure that my limbs were completely covered by the small table, I peered slowly over. The instructor was reloading his gun with tranquilizer darts, seemingly oblivious to the chaos he had caused. Somehow, he had managed to untwist himself from his former position, and was now bent over backwards; his face peered out between his legs while his arms deftly juggled the necessary pieces of equipment into the gun in front of him on a low table. My spine hurt just by looking at him. A round whizzed by near his left leg, slamming into the target just behind him, slightly above and toward the right of the center.

"That's the spirit, Patty! You are dismissed!" (Here, 'Patty' had taken the liberty to escape from the room as quickly as possible.) Two more newbies attempted to follow her, but were cut off as three shots whizzed in front of their noses. They screamed and ducked behind an overturned shoe cubbyhole. The instructor nonchalantly turned back to reloading his gun.

"Now everyone, you just keep up the good work! You wouldn't want to send your instructor to the hospital and get bathroom duty for the rest of your stay here, now!"

I felt my stomach drop. The guy was insane!

I poked my gun over the top of the table just as he had finished reloading. I saw the barrel swinging towards me, so I abandoned my attempt and hurriedly ducked once more. Three rounds flew where my head was moments ago. The responding yowls told me that two people were hit instead. I waited until he had emptied his gun before desperately attempting to locate another target.

There, across the room, the white, black, and red paper beckoned to me, a beacon of hope to my rapidly failing nerve. I aimed and fired… Only to completely miss the center. I ducked before a few more rounds hit the table top. Some slayers behind me were doing quite well, hopping out from behind their cover to fire at the targets, to be subsequently dismissed.

Five minutes later, I had hit one target, finally figuring out the trick behind the pop-out-and-fire method. Thus, I was allowed to go; much to the disappointment of the instructor. I scuttled back to my bunk, shivering. I heard a few more rounds thud against the door as his strange laugh echoed after me. I did the only thing I could. No, I didn't break down and cry. I bravely ran like a little grade-school kid back to my bunk.

* * *

A twin bumped the table, shaking me out of my flashback. Bree looked down at me in pity and pulled out some money, tossing it in front of me.

"What's this for?"

"Jump-on-In Burgers. We can go up to the surface to hang out if it's our day off."

Remembering something similar mentioned in the ever-present Slayer's Guidebook, I stuffed the money in my pants pocket and stood up, looking over to see what the other twin was doing. Katy pulled a few knives from her collection and cleaned the garlic off of them, placing them in her jacket. Ignoring this, I moved to my locker. Grabbing my jacket and a couple of sticks of gum, I slammed the door shut and trotted out of the room.

The twins followed behind me. They were laughing about how someone or another had their tail whipped at the ping-pong table the other day. I began walking faster, excited at the prospect of seeing the sky again. Locating the lift was easy enough. It was a metal cage, suspended above a rock tunnel that went upwards and downwards. You couldn't see any light coming from either way. My little group stepped in to stand near the walls and proceeded to ignore the other two people in the lift. A tinny mechanical voice crackled to life as the doors shut.

"Floor?"

A boy behind me chirped back with a happy, "Surface!" Huh, that voice sounded familiar… I turned around to see a brown haired kid with a thick bandage around his arm starting up a conversation with the twins. He was the boy with the katana from my first mission. What was his name again?

The lift shuddered and groaned, then shot upward. Forward. Backward. Sideways. Then a loop-the-loop. The wind whistled through the mesh and whipped my hair around, stinging my wide-open eyes. If I focused, I could just hear the twins through the roar of the wind…

"Hey Andre, don't you think they should do something to make this ride faster?"

Oh. Andre. That sounded right. Now, to my current impressions of the ride…

"YAH!"

The lift came to a shuddering halt. The group filed out, leaving me on the floor, spread-eagled and clutching the wire mesh as if it was my only chance of survival. A twin looked back in.

"Coming, Jan?"

I bolted out the door.

* * *

The exit to the 'elevator' was located in an entrance to a subway, behind a door labeled 'Employees Only'. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Andre and one of the twins began avoiding the people in the crowd with an ease that spoke of long experience, heading towards a building that read "Jump-on-In Burgers". The other twin ran grabbed my hand, hauling me to the rotating door. Stepping through, I could see that this place was no ordinary burger joint.

Looking through the crowd, I could see that the spacious, ocean-themed room was dominated by a huge cylindrical fish tank. Many brightly-colored schools of tropical fish swam about, flitting around the coral and over the sand. Walking towards the tank, I realized just how _big_ it was. Easily thirty feet in diameter and twenty-five feet from floor to ceiling, I strolled around it, looking in at a cluster of anemones growing near the glass. A few moments later, a shadow passed over a fish that I had been staring at. Looking up, I could see the underbelly of a grey shark swimming near the ceiling. A second level of tables and chairs were arranged around the upper windows, the stainless steel legs and wood backing giving a clean and modern feel to the area. The circular walls were all glass and steel, with no drywall in sight. A stairwell next to the bathrooms led to the second story.

I walked back to Bree and Katy, who were waiting in line. Once I was close enough, I could hear that they had begun to argue once again.

"Tank!"

"Window!"

"Tank!"

"Window!"

"We sat by the window last time!"

"We sat by the tank twice in a row!"

"You're _still_ going on about the time I won that coin toss?"

I shook my head at their antics. "Why don't you two just split up?"

They both stopped and glared at me indignantly. The twin that had been arguing for the seat next to the tank spoke first. "But then there wouldn't be any reason to fight."

Giving up, I turned to staring at the menu for a burger that was semi-affordable. I turned back to the twins.

"Where's Andre sitting at, anyway?"

"Probably up in the second story. He already ordered."

"I see. What are you getting?"

And so the conversation went back and forth from there. Taking our food from the counter after a relatively short wait, we climbed the steps to the second floor. People sat at almost all of the tables. A flicker of erratic movement caught my eye, and I looked up to see Andre waving his hand back and forth from a table he had snagged next to a window. I waved back and began making my way towards him, sliding past a gaggle of laughing kids and tired parents. I slid into a seat next to the window as the twins dropped their trays on the table. Katy grabbed her burger and took a huge bite out of it, causing Andre to grimace as a splotch of ketchup squirted out onto the floor.

"Why do you always have to get extra ketchup on your burger?"

"Why do you hate ketchup so much?" She shot back.

"Hey! I actually enjoy the taste of burger, instead of having a bushel of tomatoes with a side of beef and bread."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved her hand dismissively.

Bree was nibbling on her cheeseburger and ignoring what was going on. I picked up my plain hamburger and began munching on it. Andre spoke up again, fidgeting with some paper from a straw cover.

"So, a little bird told me that you two are showing the newbie the ropes."

Bree nodded enthusiastically. "Yeppers!"

Katy just grunted, and I turned to see her elbow-deep in a pile of burgers. Where did she get those extras? Andre turned to me, flashing a quick grin. "What do you think of the Alliance so far?"

I fidgeted with my cup, swirling the soft drink inside with the straw. "Its… interesting. I never knew that a Sue could be dispatched in so many, erm… creative… ways."

Katy growled from her seat. "It's 'artistic destruction'. Get it right."

Bree waved at Katy dismissively. "No, its not. That's just what you called the missions to make yourself feel better after The Plot Bunny Incident."

"Did not."

"Did too."

Their conversation devolved into squabbling from that point. Still, I could _hear_ the capitals in that phrase. I was about to interrupt, but Andre caught my attention and shook his head no, smiling. After a few more moments of arguing, which Katy apparently lost, the twins returned to eating and/or scowling at their food. Andre began again.

"So, I hear the downtown mall has opened up another mega-department."

Bree perked up at this. "What're they selling now?"

"I think it's a combination of jewelry, books, clothes…"

Here he had to stop because Bree had begun squealing and jumping up and down. Katy scowled at her sibling, and poked her in the side with the hilt of one of her throwing knifes. Bree made a noise like a slowly deflating balloon and settled down again. Andre began speaking again.

"…makeup, hairdressing equipment," here Bree straightened up and was about to start bouncing once more, but a warning glare from her sister made her sit down with a hollow 'thunk'. "Power tools, hardware, software, specifically of the audio recording and editing kind," Katy snapped her head towards Andre, straightening as well, "and something or another about video games for the three major consoles."

Now he had _my_ attention.

Andre glanced around at our eager faces and laughed. "It sounds like that new store has you guys _right here._" He held up his little finger and made a wrapping motion around it. Katy scowled as Bree giggled. I finished my food and stood up, moving towards the trashcan.

"I'm done. Lead the way, oh bearer of happy tidings of virtual bliss."

Andre grinned and motioned to the twins, who were cleaning up their trash. "Patience, patience. We can't leave without them, now."

I looked at the twins. Bree was still gathering her assorted trash. Katy had gotten up and was about to walk towards the trashcan, but stepped straight on the splash of ketchup that she had dropped earlier.

Losing her balance she fell on her backside, barely avoiding the ketchup smear on the floor. Her last burger on the tray had been unwrapped, and it flew up, up, up, smacking onto the ceiling. I winced as the burger slowly peeled itself off of the roof and landed with a wet 'splosh' in the huge fish tank. The shark that was swimming around sedately darted towards the disturbance and snapped up the burger in one bite. Katy grumbled and stomped down the steps, leaving a trail of ketchup. Bree fell to the ground laughing when she was out of earshot.

It turned out that this was a regular occurrence. I was introduced to Johnny the custodian that day. Apparently, he's part of the Alliance as well, but had to take up a side job to pay for the medical treatment since he's a regular. Poor kid.

* * *

It turned out that the mall was only a few blocks away, so it didn't take long at all to reach the gargantuan building. The new store, known as "Haveock's", was large, the tan carpeting muting the dull roar of the afternoon crowd to a bearable level.

Bree scurried off to the jewelry counter, Katy headed in the general direction of the hardware area, and Andre had disappeared somewhere, leaving me standing stupidly in the entrance. I decided to follow Bree to the jewelry.

Bree was bent over a display, so I sidled up behind her. An employee noticed her interest and walked up, key in hand. "Could I help you with anything?"

"Sure. There's this cat necklace there…" She gestured at a circular piece of silver with a crouching cat. "How much is it?"

The attendant fished the jewelry out of the case and turned it around. "It's ninety-nine ninety-eight." Bree winced before thanking the attendant, walking off to look at another earring display.

I turned and strolled towards the general direction of the video game section. I moved around a nearby shelf, but stopped, curious, as I heard Andre call over an employee behind me.

"Miss? I'll take that one, the cat."

Rustlings and clinks indicated the counting and exchange of money. I peeked around the corner to see Andre holding a jewelry box in one hand and a receipt in the other. He walked towards Bree, crumpling the paper and sticking it in his pocket.

I left upon hearing a happy squeal, moving towards the game displays.

* * *

Everyone regrouped and exited the store after a few hours. Katy was grinning excitedly and jabbering about the latest 'SoundTools' audio editing software program, hunched over her bag of purchases and reaching down to stroke it occasionally.

Weird. I thought I heard her mutter something about a 'precious'.

Bree was wearing her new cat necklace and grinning, holding her bag of new clothes. I was clutching a game I had wanted for quite a while. Andre was near the front, talking to Bree. I hung near the back, full, content, and completely ready to go to sleep.

We walked to the subway entrance and stood in front of the doors leading to the lift. Dread began to settle in my stomach again. The doors whirred open, clanging open with a rattle. Bree and Katy calmly walked in, with Andre following behind. I hesitated, looking between the lift and the doors, seriously contemplating making a break for it. Bree made that plan moot by reading my mind and grabbing my hand, hauling me inside the lift before I could protest. I whimpered as the doors closed, sealing my fate.

The lift shuddered and creaked before it began to slowly descend. I peered out between my fingers from my curled-up position on the floor. I unwrapped myself before standing up, warily stepping towards a wall.

The floor jerked, then plummeted. Before I could grab the guardrail we were off, completing a loop the loop, sliding sideways, jerking forwards and backwards several times before coming to a rattling halt.

The doors opened, allowing our little group to leave.

I groaned as I got to my feet, shakily walking out after a skipping Bree and more sedately paced Andre. A secretary stopped what she was typing before reaching towards a pegboard, removing something before standing up and nodding to Katy. She took the offered flash drive with an official-looking insignia before scurrying towards the general direction of our bunk. Andre looked around and left, waving and throwing over his shoulder a cheery 'good luck' as he jogged to the boy's end of the complex. I shook my head, trying to regain some equilibrium before I traveled through the crowded hallways.

* * *

I reached the bunk a few minutes later. One of the twins was reading a document on the computer, the other twin staring at the screen over her shoulder. I dropped by bag on my bed and moved to the computer, curious. The twin that was standing began to grin predatorily as the other twin groaned and smacked her head on the desk. Repeatedly. I looked at the screen.

Mission: Eradicate an OC-Self-Insert Sue

I looked back at Katy, who was turning to gather some weapons. Bree scraped her chair backwards, pulling the flash drive out of the computer before moving to pack her bag. Katy was rapping to herself under her breath about ways to dismember a Sue, while Bree hummed a subdued "Mission Impossible" theme.

Following suit, I grabbed my gun and attached the laser sight.

I had something to look forward to tomorrow.

(1) Don't ask me why the table was fastened to the floor; I had questioned the twins earlier, but they remained silent on the issue.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own the concept of the Otherpaths, which was created by Oreramar.

I do not own the concept of Anti-Sparklypoo, which was created by warrior4.

I do not own twelve-foot-long Sue-swords, which are used by LittlePsychoWolf in her Sue-slaying fics.

Spiderman is almost completely overrated.

I also do not own the candy called Rolos, although they do taste good.

* * *

The sky was a deep blue today. The forest was quiet, and a few clouds sailed overhead. Oddly enough, they seemed natural, misshapen. In other words, they weren't Sue-generated.

Sue. What was a… Sue?

A hazy definition began to take shape in the recesses of my mind, which eventually led thoughts about the Slayer's Alliance, to the Plothole Generator, to my latest mission…

I sat bolt upright. And introduced myself to a branch, face first.

Groaning, I brushed the offending object out of the way and sat up, holding the branch away from my face. My head hurt a bit, and I tentatively reached behind to feel a slight bump forming. At least it didn't feel like I had a concussion…

I tried standing up and felt a shift in my balance, tripping forward and nearly smacking my face against the ground again. I rolled over and sat up, glaring down at my uncooperative legs… and froze.

I had fur.

Slowly, I turned to look behind me. There was a bushy brown tail attached to the base of my spine.

Feeling the rising panic, I swallowed, trying to force the arriving hysteria down as I thought about where I was before this happened.

_Okay, I received a mission earlier from HQ… Where was I supposed to go…? Think, think… Aha!_

I attempted to snap two paw pads together but failed. Still, a grin spread across my face. I was in the Redwall universe! The mounting fear evaporated with this realization. I took a deep breath and ran my paw over my furry head; feeling slightly unsettled about the lack of my hair but ignored it in favor of releasing the branch I had somehow forgotten about. It returned to its former position with a thwack, shaking some leaves off.

I tried to remember what the mission file had outlined, but remembering the details was a bit of a challenge as I had only skimmed the mission requirements, leaving the Slayer-jargon and subsequent heavy analyzation to the twins. What I _could_ recall was that I was in the time when the Marlfoxes were supposed to be in the middle of besieging the Abbey. We were to stop the fox-Sue that was attempting to seduce the only male fox remaining, thus preventing the complete and oh-so _tragic_ elimination of the Marlfox brood. There was also something about Raventail being the best man for the Sues' wedding … I shook my head again, the bump beginning to thud in tandem with my heartbeat. I looked around, glad that I had finally established a timeframe. I saw my can of garlic oil a ways away and stood to retrieve it, but tripped, falling forwards again. I huffed as soon as I regained some air in my lungs.

It took me minute or two to get used to my new center of balance, but I was eventually able to move around well enough to conduct an exhaustive search of the area. Fifteen minutes had me feeling confident enough to run and exposed the location of a wild damson tree, but I had failed to locate my gun. Scowling, I returned to the spot where I landed, staring at the indent I had left in the grass. Then I turned around and jogged away from the area. I had no idea how I was going to find the twins, especially seeing as they were used to missions like this, but I really needed to find a way to get to Redwall Abbey.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at HQ…

"I want those three found, and I want it done NOW!" She slammed a fist on the desk, causing the assorted knickknacks to rattle and teeter closer to the edge.

"Yes ma'am." The poor aide squeaked as she curled into herself one last time before scurrying down the hallway, a full five inches shorter. The commander massaged her temples, the worn-down nails showing how close she was to a breakdown. Two of her veterans and a promising rookie couldn't have just disappeared! But that was exactly what happened; Katy, Bree, and Jan were simply gone. Their trackers were no longer transmitting their location; the team's receiver displaying a 'no signal' for every channel the engineers set it to. Teams had been dispatched to comb the fandoms and various canonverses of Redwall, but kept coming up negative. Only the rookie's gun and the record of the mission remained; but the data on the disc had been mostly destroyed, leaving the title of the book that they were to be in and a vague outline of the area they were to land at. Worrying about the hijacking of their secured archives would have to wait for later though. Where were they?

She looked up at the various maps decorating her wall, grinding her teeth together. It could take forever to search the backwoods and eras of Marlfox, especially the uncharted regions that hadn't been written yet!

Uncharted regions…

The commander narrowed her eyes before crossing over to the entrance of her office, locking the door and pushing shut the deadbolt. Satisfied that she now had relative privacy, she grabbed a few garlic grenades off of a shelf before opening an Otherpath portal. Stepping through the swirling blue and gold, she waited for her second office to materialize.

* * *

"…So, you need me to help you find some lost Slayers."

"Yes, if you're available."

The water rat on the screen rubbed his chin as the commander tapped her footpaws on the floor impatiently. The rat opened his mouth, but stopped and tilted his head, hearing something out of his earpiece. He shook his head and shrugged helplessly.

"I wish I could, but I just got a report of two Stus about to behead Cluny the Scourge, and the Salamandastron forces have their paws full."

The commander nodded. "I understand."

"Sorry."

The screen blinked off.

She stood up and walked to the eastern wall, where she kept a whiteboard for organization. She erased the last name off of the list. Turning back to her written records, she looked around for another individual that owed her a favor or three. Finding none, she slammed the covers shut and pushed it onto the shelf. Lovely. Now she had to recruit someone who was willing to search Mossflower with her for the next day or so.

The commander moved back to her viewscreen and pulled up a list titled '**Acquaintances**'.

Twelve minutes and five less names later-

"Aelin Wordsmith?"

An otter in a blue tunic flickered into view.

* * *

I was lost. I stared at the tree in front of me, feeling with some resignation that I _had_ passed that particular one five minutes ago. I made to walk past it...

"YEOW!"

…Only to stumble over a root and stomp on a thorn. I teetered and hopped about on one paw before hitting a shallow indentation in the rough ground. Losing my balance completely, I fell headlong into a waiting wild blackberry bush.

My coat of fur and tunic had taken the brunt of the damage, but the thorns that had made it through were _sharp_!

Crawling out of the bush and shaking myself off, I climbed up a shorter tree to peer through the thick foliage. Nothing but more leaves were to be seen around me. I thought I had seen a section of Redwall a few minutes ago, but I had fallen into a ditch and lost sight of that red glimmer. Still, I knew roughly which way to travel. I climbed down from the tree and began walking in that direction again.

"Krakkyakkr."

I paused, looking around. Everything was quiet, and I couldn't see anyone. I could have sworn…

A painted weasel popped into view in front of me, grinning. I recoiled, startled.

"YIPE!"

"Krakkyyakr yakkayakkayakka!" Oh great. Now he was laughing at me. "Stoatbeast scarefast. Yellmuch. Why should Raventail need you to fightfight?"

"Ah erm…" Well, this was a dilemma. First this weasel comes out of nowhere, starts making fun of me, and then starts talking about a fight. What the heck was he going on about?

"Muchmuch tastyfood, newswords, shinythings. Raventail wants you join 'n fight now, now."

Jan blinked. "Wait, chief Raventail is storming Redwall tomorrow?" I _am_ in the Marlfox universe, right?

The weasel's now-shocked expression morphed into one of suspicion. "How you know? I say nothing 'bout Redwalls."

Now it was my turn to pause. How was I going to answer that? "Ah, er, because…" _Think… think…_ "I... er... know things?" _Oh, great going, Jan_.

The weasel stared at me, contemplating what I had just said. Then he grinned. "Chief Raventail may need a stoatseer. You, comewith Filchpaw now, now."

"Wait, I'm not a-"

The weasel turned and skittered away. I gaped for a moment before hurrying to catch up to the speedy Filchpaw, unable to settle on a fitting reaction.

Then it hit me. I was going to make contact with a major _canon character_.

Great.

Now, I could only hope that I didn't cause the collapse of this universe by saying the wrong thing. I eyed the rapidly retreating form in front of me and ran faster.

* * *

The commander switched off her viewscreen and sighed, rubbing her temples. How on earth was she going to get _that_ many pounds of dried mangos in a week? Eh, she'd just send Johnny out to do it. That boy had to earn some more money to cover his latest misadventure, after all. Aelin drove a hard bargain, but at least she wasn't going in alone.

She shook her head and turned around to grab her weapons. A whip with a threaded head graced the wall, next to a pair of leather gloves with medium-sized steel spikes embedded in the knuckles. Anti-Sparklypoo canisters courtesy of Rector the mouse was located on one of the shelves, and crates of the much-used garlic spray were located below these. Grabbing a canister of each spray, a belt, and her whip, she opened another Otherpath portal and stepped into Mossflower wood.

An otter was standing nearby, stretching and popping her neck and arms. The commander reached into her pack and tossed a tube of Rolos to the otter. Choosing not to watch Aelin's reaction to the candy in lieu of pulling on her belt and hanging the two cans of spray on one side. She sat down to organize her pack, moving the garlic grenades that she had grabbed earlier into a side pocket. Aelin looked down at her, munching on the offering thoughtfully.

"So, who are we looking for?" The commander clicked her buckle into place and stood up, rubbing two paws across her whip head, twisting a very sharp harpoon barb into place before spraying it with garlic, replying as she did so.

"Three Slayers - Katy, Bree, and Jan. They aren't coming up on any of my tracking devices." Aelin rubbed her chin and frowned, popping another bit of candy into her mouth.

"Any idea where to look?" The commander shrugged as she tightened her whip head with two crescent wrenches.

"They probably got dumped somewhere near Redwall, since that was their original destination." Aelin nodded.

"Are we looking for humans or animals?" The commander turned to rearrange her items in her pack, tossing her two wrenches in.

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure that they were sucked through the Otherpaths instead of going through our Generator." Aelin nodded, mulling over this information for a second.

"Animals it is, then. Any ideas?" Aelin ripped more wrapping off of the tube in search of the chocolate-ey caramel goodness, but her searching paws were met with nothing but foil. She frowned and tossed her trash into her pack.

"Nope. Two of the three could be anything from a shrew to a skunk. I have an idea of what Bree could be, though." The commander chuckled at the thought. Aelin fingered one of her short swords, an excited grin beginning to spread across her face as the sugar and chocolate set in.

"Let's go, then."

* * *

I was not in the best of moods. My paw was throbbing from the thorn I had stomped on earlier, the back of my skull itched from the still-rising bump, and I just realized that I had been traveling in the wrong direction for the past half hour. So it was that I came upon the organized chaos of the Marlfox camp. Rats, stoats, weasels, and ferrets ran around on various errands as they prepared for nightfall. Following Filchpaw was a chore in of itself.

"Oh, the vixen Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon should be a wonderful mate for the Marlfox Ascrod."

I stopped short at hearing the Sue's introduction, losing any hope of following Filchpaw in the crowd. A dazed looking water rat swayed, then shook his head as if he was clearing water out of his ears. A cloud of purple sparkly flew off of him and hovered above his head. His eyes lost their glassy sheen and returned to the standard dull-eyed obedience of the species as he turned back to what he was doing earlier. I moved towards where the rat was, palming the head of my can of garlic spray. The cloud of sparkly didn't disperse like it normally would, instead rising higher and streaking towards my right.I followed the rapidly moving vapor, doing my best to avoid the rushing animals around me. But my best attempt at agility wasn't enough, and I stomped on the paws and tails of several different beasts. Screeches and yowls followed me as the characters dropped whatever they were carrying to either hold their now-throbbing appendages or to shake their fists and yell at me. Ignoring the chaos I had caused, I ran ahead to the clearing that had just been created by another cloud of sparkly.

I stopped short at what I saw, nearly tripping over my paws again. I ducked into a waiting bush to avoid being seen, in the process scratching my nose with a thorn. I hissed in a breath and looked up to see a large and fragrant pink flower positioned right in front of my nose. It was a rose.

I scowled and turned my head back to the clearing just in time to see an elaborately tattooed vixen with silver fur stroll out of a large red tent that had appeared just after I had ducked behind the bush. A cloud of sparkly trailed after her like purple smoke. Ascrod was arguing with one of his sisters about something when the Sue caught his attention. The sparkly reared up and flew forward to wrap around the shocked Marlfox, seeping into his nose, ears, and the pores of his skin. Before any of the characters could react, the two female Marlfoxes disappeared just as Ascrod passed out, a large gash appearing on his chest as his grey fur became a shining silver. Raventail, who was walking towards Ascrod, was grabbed by some sparkly and was hung upside-down in a tree by his tail. Before the ferret could yell, he was bound, gagged, and knocked out, his fur becoming a shiny copper color. The cloud of sparkly then flew over the noisy crowd.

All of the vermin that had been recruited by Raventail quieted before turning as one towards the clearing, eyes red in bloodwrath. They all began advancing forward in a menacing way. The Sue looked downwards at Ascrod in perfect shock, her golden eyes widening before taking a ready fighting stance and waving her hand in the air, causing two perfectly decorated silver-hilted-gold-bladed-twelve-foot-long swords to appear. She charged, gracefully stepping this way and that her eyes standing out like two golden embers in the dark and her tattoos seemed to come alive like snakes as her arms struck this way and that her enemies being laid low as they were overwhelmed by the perfection amayzingness that was…

Here, I turned away and hit my head on the ground in order to preserve some of my sanity, poking my back with another thorn and shocking me out of my Sue-induced haze. Turning back, I hoped that the author had finished her run-on sentence describing the Sue, but to no avail.

…moments later the vermin horde lay dead around Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon as she fell to her knees weeping over the deaths of the vermins before making herself feel better with the thought that her new mate Ascrod would still be there for her and that he would make her feel better with kissez an' lIIlIeet77Ffndjskieirflggz11!11!zgloozz1z…

I gagged and sprayed some garlic around myself, warding off the Sparklypoo that was threatening to overwhelm my brain. I wiggled out of the bush, looking for some rocks that I could use to defend myself with. Unfortunately, the sparkly had smoothed over the ground, covering everything with a blanket of thick green grass. Tapping my chin, I began spraying around my clump of bushes. My guess was proven correct as the garlic dispersed the sparkly, causing the grass to melt away as a rock popped out of the ground like a daisy. Grinning, I grabbed it and moved back into the rose bush to wait.

* * *

Somewhere on the opposite side of the clearing, a tan-brown squirrel and a brown hedgehog stared at the Sue in horror. They looked at each other and nodded before diving into cover, the squirrel to a tree and the hedgehog behind one of the larger bushes. The squirrel jumped and began climbing through the sparkly-thickened trees towards the Sue, who was now beginning to cry over the fallen form of Ascrod, tears dropping directly into the oddly bloodless wound. The squirrel reached into her pack and pulled out a throwing knife.

* * *

The commander was staring at her communicator, the 'Sparkly Detector' application whirring. She stopped as an immense curve blipped onto the screen. "Aelin."

The otter turned around to see the commander bent over her handheld. "What is it?"

"I've got a reading on some major sparkly levels behind us."

Aelin nodded as the commander stuck her communicator back in her pack. Reaching for their respective weapons, the Slayers spun and sped through the sparkly-thickening greenery.

* * *

Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon finished weeping; all of her tears flew into the wound covering the strong chest of Ascrod, causing the wound to knit back together before her very eyez!

Here, I sprayed some more garlic in order to move the plot along faster, and to skip the wannabe-lovelorn descriptions given by the Suethor.

Ascrod stood up, pelt gleaming, and gazed lovingly at Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon.

"Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon."

The vixen looked up, eyes shining beautifully with more unshed tears. "Yes?"

"You are the love of my-"

A cloud of garlic erupted from the top of my rose bush in a manner not unlike a mushroom cloud and flew over to the Sue. The Sue jumped backwards to avoid the garlic, but Ascrod wasn't fast enough. The garlic settled around him, attacking and dissolving the metallic sheen on his fur. However, he was standing so close to the Sue that the garlic didn't destroy the sparklypoo completely, instead causing the dazed fox to disappear into the pocket universe where his sisters had been deposited.

I gingerly stepped out of the rose bush, barely avoiding stomping on another thorn. The Sue wrinkled her nose and stepped back, disgusted at the sweaty, disheveled state of the dull brown stoat in front of her.

"You!" she screeched at me. "How _dare_ you hurt my 'Scroddy-doddy!"

I grimaced at the name and lifted my stone, throwing it with decent aim at the Sue and barely missing her perfect head. She recoiled in horror at the dirt covering the rock and drew her swords once again. The gold glinted in the sunlight, covering the silver that seemed to be wreathed in shadows. The Sue paused for effect, but the moment was ruined by the shriek of metal upon metal.

The Sue stared in shock at her sword, which had a throwing knife buried to the handle in the middle of the blade. The weapon began smoking furiously, causing the Sue to drop it with a small scream. It dissolved into a cloud of sparkles as it hit the ground. A squirrel and a hedgehog ran out from the underbrush and stood in front of the Sue.

Glaring prettily, the Sue straightened and roared out a defiant, "You cannot defeat me!"

She reflexively released her cloud of sparkly. It wound out like a demented snake, widening the clearing even further and causing the sky to darken. Jan edged closer to the squirrel and the hedgehog, can of spray held in front of her defensively.

"ARGH! JUSKA!"

The Sue had finally worked herself into a fitting rage and was flying towards the little group at breakneck speed. The squirrel and I dove away from each other as the hedgehog stepped forward, three throwing knives held in one paw, and…

_A nunchacku in the other?_

"_Katy?"_

The Sue attempted to slam into the hedgehog, but instead went flying as the hedgehog neatly sidestepped; leaving a footpaw extended to trip the Sue. The squirrel streaked after the airborne fox, throwing garlicked knives into the air. However, the high concentration of sparkly kept batting the projectiles away, leaving the Sue unharmed. The knives fell to the ground hissing from the contact with the purple Sue-aura, wisps of smoke curling away from the blades.

The Sue landed with the unnatural grace befitting of her species and held her sword aloft. She turned and charged again, this time aiming for the squirrel. She swung her sword downwards in an intended to be fatal blow upon the head of the squirrel… only to hit empty space. Tugging her sword free of the ground where had been embedded, the Sue turned around, beautifully bewildered that she had somehow misplaced and missed the squirrel that was _right in front of her_ a moment ago. I couldn't blame her; I was confused at what happened as well. Where _did_ that squirrel go?

The hedgehog took advantage of the Sue's shock and began throwing more garlicked knives. The sparkly flared up and blocked them, but the hedgehog darted in and started clubbing at the smoking haze around the still-dazed Sue. I moved in, spraying garlic at the sparkly and dissolving it further. The Sue shook her head dramatically and swung her sword, hitting the hedgehog with the flat edge and knocking her into the air. The sword continued in its arc, smacking against my stomach painfully and knocking all the wind out of me.

I rolled over, gagging and desperately gulping in air from my position on the ground, trying to roll away from the light patter of paws coming towards me. I sat up and dry heaved, but heavy piece of sharp metal pressed onto my neck, forcing me still. The voice of the Sue cooed disgustingly behind me. I looked up into the face of the monstrosity, still trying to catch my breath.

"O oh, you are in trouble. You tried to defeat me, the one and only Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon, and you tried to take away my 'Scroddy-doddy" she murmured as she moved closer to my face. Her sparkly began to slither into my ears and nose, making me feel lightheaded and causing my fur to stand on end, gaining a silvery sheen as it did so. "I like the strong ones." Her paw ran under my upraised chin as she pondered about something for a moment. "Yes, that's it." She took her paw away, allowing my head to droop forwards slightly. "You will be my new second in command." The fox's grin grew predatory, but as I stared it seemed to change into the prettiest smile I had ever seen… My head sagged sideways as the vixen Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon finished speaking. "You must now be called…"

"DIE, SUE!"

A concussive blast pushed the Sue forwards over my head, taking her gigantic sword with her. I stared dumbly at the spot in front of me, shaking my head and dazedly pushed myself backwards from where the Sue had landed, towards another rose bush.

An otter in a blue tunic rushed forwards, two swords held out in front of her. She swung, her right arm stabbing downward while her left batted away at the attacking purple sparkly. Another figure, a mouse in a grey shirt, ran forward with a whip dangling from her paw. They descended on the Sue, metal ringing upon the shield of sparkly while the irregular staccato cracking of the whip reverberated in the background. I hung back, dazed as the two fighters darted in, out, and around the Sue, sneaking their weapons past the Sue's defenses to cut into the rapidly-thinning shield.

The otter stabbed forwards, slicing through the last layer and nicking a paw of the Sue. Black smoke belched out of the wound, causing the fox to shriek and flail around. Her sword flashed, whipping forwards and nearly catching the otter on the head. The otter ducked and dropped back, allowing the mouse to curl her whip around the fox's wounded arm. She yanked, tearing a huge gash into the top of the limb with the sharp barb. The Sue backed off, whimpering and crying as the garlic ate away at the limb, causing it to completely fall off moments later. The otter stalked forwards, grimacing in disgust at the Sue's pitiful attempts to beg for pity.

"Should we get this over with?"

The mouse nodded, a predatory grin beginning to spread across her face. "Certainly. After you."

They rushed, the otter sinking her sword into the Sue's chest while the mouse cracked the handle of her whip down on the Sue's skull. The fox shrieked before falling still. The mouse rubbed her paws together and held up a hand, opening a blue-gold hole in the air next to her. She reached down and grabbed the carcass, then threw it bodily into the break. I shakily stood up; wisps of blue sparkly evaporating off of my form. I slowly turned, looking around for the hedgehog and squirrel I had seen earlier.

The mouse stepped towards me, and I stopped, feeling a bit of wetness dribble out of my mouth to puddle on my collar. The mouse scowled and grabbed a can, spraying a mist of _something_ on me. A few seconds later I shook my head, feeling my mental functions slowly beginning to run at their full capacity again. I swallowed and sniffed, noting the conspicuous absence of garlic before warily looking at the mouse in front of me.

"What was that?" The mouse shrugged, staring at my face.

"Anti-Sparklypoo. Stops the Sue's affect on your brain and body. I think I got to you too late though…" I jerked, feeling my eyes widen.

"WHAT!"

"Never mind, you're good. Hey Aelin! We've got a beast down over here!" She ran towards the hedgehog, who was sitting up and holding her head with both paws. I followed the mouse and the otter, where both crouched down next to her.

"Ooh, my head. Did anyone catch the plate number on that stampede?" Aelin grinned and patted a section of the hedgehog's arm, carefully avoiding the spikes.

"Nope, but you seem fine. Let me take a look at that bump for you…" she pulled out a tiny flashlight and began to check for a head injury. I turned around and looked at the surroundings, seeing the forest slowly revert to its normal shape. A wide-eyed tan squirrel walked out of the bushes and made her way towards us, swaying a bit.

"I think I'm going to be sick…"

I darted forwards, ready to support her but she pushed me away.

"I don't think that you want to be near me. I feel like I went through that teacup ride with Katy and Andre again…"

I grinned, stopping myself from asking about _that_ little number. "So, I take it you're Bree, then?"

"Yep, that's me…" she blearily looked up at me, eyebrows pinching together. "Who're you?"

"Jan." She grunted in acknowledgment, and looked around.

"Where's Katy at?"

I motioned to the little group. Bree staggered towards them and sat down heavily. I followed suit, sitting to her left.

* * *

"So, I take it that this," here I motioned to my furry form, "is not normal."

We were sitting in a circle around a small fire away from the Marlfox camp. The commander and Aelin had somehow jury rigged a device to revert all that the Sue had messed up back to normal, after untying the still-unconscious Raventail from the tree. All of our nicks, scratches, and deep cuts from the fight had been bandaged and treated, and Bree was roasting some early berries on an elm stick. The mouse shook her head before swallowing the granola bar she had opened earlier.

"If you were transported here the normal way, no. You see, the Plothole Generator forces you to enter a canonverse as yourself, a human. Every world has its own set of rules, but the Plothole Generator forces you into that universe as-is; still following the real world's set of laws. This has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but I'll explain later." I shifted, fidgeting with some dirt and twigs.

"So, what caused us to sprout fur and tails?"

"I was just getting to that. It's known as the Otherpaths."

It turns out that these 'Otherpaths' are the original way of moving to and from the canonverses. It can change our appearance and augment our strength, allowing us to fight Sues on equal ground. But, as one comic book character says, "With great power comes great responsibility". Using the Otherpaths to give yourself too many Sue-ish qualities could cause irreparable damage to the canonverse. Thankfully, there's a fix for that as well. (1)

"Bree here has already used them, if accidentally." The commander stated offhandedly, tossing her whip into her pack.

"You mean that when she disappeared, she was really using the Otherpaths?"

"Yes. I will direct you in their correct usage sometime."

Silence reigned in the circle for a few minutes. Aelin took a breath and stood up, tugging her pack onto her shoulder.

"Well, I've gotta get going. See you later!" she called back while opening an Otherpath portal.

The commander waved goodbye to the chipper otter and turned to us. She opened up a portal and stepped to the side, motioning for us to step through. We reappeared in a back alley near the Jump-on-In. I noted with some surprise that my fur was gone, and looked to see that the twins were back to their normal selves as well.

Then commander turned to us and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. In fact, it looked not unlike a cat that had just cornered its prey.

"Oh, and before I forget. When you three disappeared, I had to send out most of our teams to comb the canonverses for you guys, taking them away from their usual work and allowing the Sues to build up. You three officially have ditched to play hooky for the day and have been caught by myself when we ran into each other at my favorite haunt; Jireh, House of Coffee. You three are on bathroom duty for the rest of the week with Johnny. You will not be allowed to go on missions during that time and will have restricted access to certain sections of the building for the rest of the month."

We all stared at her, unable to process what had just happened. Katy was the first to recover. She spluttered and choked, eyes bulging. "Wh- Wha- wai- jus- That's completely unfair!"

"Yes, I know it is. But if you three show up, safe and sound after being considered 'MIA in the canonverses' for a _full day_, certain people will want to know what happened. More specifically, they will want to know _how_ you were able to survive. There _is_ a reason that we use the Generator instead of the Otherpaths." Katy nodded, shocked at the turn of events.

"But what about- will this go on our records?"

"No, I will make sure that you will be let off with a warning. You three will go in tomorrow to the briefing room to receive your sentence. Now, line up in front of me."

We did so. The commander pulled out three smooth bands of metal from her pack, each fashioned to look like a simple silver bracelet. "Put these on."

We each shuffled forward to take one. It was a ring of metal, with a clip that opened to allow it to be placed over the hand. I lifted it up to inspect it, but felt it begin to constrict and hastily moved it onto my wrist, watching as the clip seemed to seamlessly melt into the rest of the metal. A light began blinking red, with a deactivated yellow and green light next to it. I twisted my band around so that the light was hidden by my arm.

"Hey, look at this!"

Bree grinned as she held her hand in the air, and of its own accord, I could feel my arm being pulled up by an invisible string. Katy, who was on the other side of Bree, yanked her unwillingly uplifted arm downwards with a growl and twisted towards the commander, barely restrained anger etched across her face.

"Explain this. Please."

The commander looked at us innocently. "It's merely company policy. Now," She turned us around and shooed us forwards, "walk in front of me towards the lift. You will be sent to your bunks after your weapons are removed from your lockers."

I groaned and started to go forwards, feeling a tug from my invisibly connected manacle. Bree hurried to walk next to me and gave me a sympathetic glance. I smiled sheepishly before squaring my shoulders and dove into the crowd.

* * *

I stepped into the subway and followed the commander towards the "Employees Only" door. I stopped upon seeing the cage of doom, sitting there looking as innocent as can be. The twins and the commander filed in silently, leaving me in the doorway with my arm up and directed towards Bree. The commander looked at me sharply.

I stepped in quite reluctantly. The doors closed in behind me, sealing me inside the death trap. I looked up and whimpered at the pitiless dull gray metal that made up the ceiling.

Would the torture never end?

* * *

(1) Oreramar's story, "The Trouble with SelfInserts" gives all of the details. That little thing that Aelin and the commander made is based on this.


	4. Chapter 4

Yes, my loyal follower(s?). I am alive. MUAHAHAHA! (cough cough)

Sorry about the absence in updates. School and all… I'm sure you understand. The next one is probably going to be a while too… Eheheh.

So, (nervous look) here's a treat/distraction for you to read as I run away. (hands document to you)

Wait! AGH! NO! DON'T KILL ME! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! (AlltheAces scampers up a Mulberry tree as a small number of angry individuals that you could count on one hand chase after me with a club, a pitchfork, and a spatula, respectively)

* * *

/ / jack plug false false false image / : ' triple &* / exe RUN SCAN/ : \ \ \ continue? /:y /:n

/:Y

scan initiated. now starting…

/ / .ExE. jump 395 search search initialize/ : C/ / \ / false jump live/ / \ master send run/ execute/

SEARCH: MARLFOX SUE / / now loading…

…

…

FILE NOT FOUND. attempt search? /:y /:n

/:N

initiate recovery sequence? /:y /:n

/:Y

recovery sequence initialize. search for files containing: MARLFOX SUE MOSSFLOWER RAVENTAIL / containing any of these words/ mission category level mid delta-lamda / estimated TIME, [10] MIN / / continue? /:y /:n

"Stupid machine…"

/:Y

continuing… loading… loading…

initialize…

? / / / ! / ? ? ? / / C / / LOADING LOADING LOADING LOADING SCAN SEARCH ALPHA SEARCH BETA SEARCH JUMP RAINFALL SEARCH…

…

load complete. file not found.

"Darn you and all your ilk, o bane of my existence." The clatter of keys bit sharply into the silence.

C/: initialize plothole generator stability test query past five days. 

plothole generator stability test loading… estimated run time, [2] MIN continue? /:y /:n

/:Y

loading/… loading/…

test results complete. plothole generator margin of error less than or equal to 0.001%; instability rate minimal past [7] days.

/C / / query: stability report last five days/

/stability report last [5] days initialize…/ continue? /:y /:n

/:Y

: ? / / load file complete. stability fluctuation between 0.0010% and 0.0002%, operation optimal, usage risk minimal. otherpath support ratio report? /:y /:n

/:Y

otherpath support of plothole generator is at the standard 25%; oscillation remains between 24.5% and 25.5% in past five days (normal and in acceptable range). one error on date 01/31/00xx allowing total of [3] individuals to be transported into the redwall universe.

The commander straightened, and rapidly typed in another command.

/: C / / query: load coordinates for plothole generator error on date 01/31/00xx redwall universe

now loading… date of coordinates in sector 3-76-901, 0012N:3305E:5460W:0000S

coordinate load: location now shown on screen…

The darkened room became illuminated as a large screen flickered to life in front of the commander. She stared as the world of Mossflower became defined, a path being traced from the Plothole Generator to the coordinates given in space.

The dot halted somewhere outside of the atmosphere, and the screen zoomed in. The stimulation showed a plothole opening, about to deposit three figures into airless space. A blue and gold tendril flickered into view, snatching the three outlines out of the instable plothole and causing them to disappear before they materialized completely in the vacuum. The commander slouched against her seat with a shuddering sigh.

"Those lucky dogs…"

The application shut down, a printer whirring to life next to the small computer screen. The commander grabbed the report, writing notes in the margins.

'Three Slayers yesterday nearly died from failure to make sure that the coordinates directed to a nonlethal landing in the canonverse of Marlfox (find who accessed the computer before the mission). The failure is not to be accredited to the Plothole Generator. The Otherpaths, in their role of supporting the Generator's plothole formation, apparently acted of its own accord and teleported the three Slayers to a safe location (research necessary to study Otherpath reaction to life and living things). Three Slayers now know about the Otherpaths, briefing and paperwork now priority.'

She tucked the papers under her arm, shutting down the computer before leaving the room. The door clicked shut and automatically locked behind her. She walked down the hall and stepped into the lift, muttering a floor request into the mike before sinking to a lower level.

Moments passed in the silent hall.

The door to the room creaked open, and a shadowy form entered. It moved to sit at the computer with the grace of flowing silk, an ominous click heralding the activation of the behemoth.

* * *

"Oy, Jake." The aforementioned boy looked up before a pile of paper landed on his desk to his dismayed groan. "I need all of the spare guards to come to briefing room 4-H as soon as possible. The meeting will be held at 1400 hours."

The brunette hurried to type in this declaration on some unseen dialogue box. "Sure thing. Anything else ya need?"

"Yep. Call up Joe and tell him that I'm coming to get a drink in ten minutes. An Americano, small cup, and add four shots."

The typing paused for a moment as Jake peered warily over his monitor at the commander. "…Six shots of espresso? Straight?"

"You heard me." Jake shrugged and turned back to his keyboard again.

"All right. As long as I'm not the one cleaning up the mess when the guards have to corner you in the Generator room again." The commander scowled at the secretary.

"Ha ha, very funny. Just order it, will you?"

"Fine, fine…" The keyboard was given another workout. "… Aaaaaand - you're gonna have to reschedule your meeting for allocating funds to replacing the kitchen cutlery for your lunch break tomorrow."

"I'll think about that later. Oh, and Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Get the current set coordinates for the Generator and copy them onto a flash drive. I'll also need a bunch of paper, and an overhead display. Come to think of it, I need all of the security camera footage from 0300 hours to 2300 hours recorded yesterday for the input room as well." Jake remained silent as he processed this information and typed it into the system.

"All right, that's done, but I don't like the picture I'm seeing. What happened?"

"Security breach. I think it may be an inside man." Jake threw up his arms and flopped against his seat with a groan.

"Great. Lovely. I'm gonna have to move my desk again."

"Idiot." Jake squeaked as he ducked a light swat from a rolled magazine and turned back to his keyboard. "It's not that kind of a leak. I'll explain later once I have all of the information." Jake grinned and turned back to the commander.

"Sure. Just don't traumatize the widdle guardies with your avenging angel persona." The commander grimaced and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand.

"As long as they don't ask for it. Those morons are going to be the end of me someday…"

* * *

_Two days later._

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The fist-sized rubber ball smacked against the lockers, the incessant thudding beginning to beat in tandem with my pulsing headache.

I craned my head to look at the twin making the noise. _There_ she sat, stoically throwing the ball with her dominant hand.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

_Irritating. That was the only word to describe it. Purely, exclusively, Irritating. _

…_Capital 'I'. _

"…Could you _please_ stop that, Bree?"

The twin caught the ball with her outstretched hand and moved her gaze to meet my own. She blinked once, slowly turning back to the wall before beginning to toss the ball again.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

"…" _Oh, come _on_._

I reached over to grab the first thing at hand; which happened to be one of the twins' shoes. Winding up as well as I could from my prone position on my bed; I tossed the smelly item towards the general direction of Bree's brown-haired cranium. Naturally it missed my target completely, knocking the airborne rubber ball away from her outstretched hand instead. She turned to look at me, face still blank.

"I'm _Katy_."

_O-o-h no, not _this_ again._ "I don't care if you're Missy Prissy. Could you _please_ stop that? Listening to that for the past three hours has given me a headache."

"I've only been tossing the ball for two hours and fifty-seven minutes." She glanced up at the clock over the door. "Exactly."

"I don't need to be informed about the technicalities. Thank you very much for stopping."

Katy shrugged and resumed staring at nothing, not moving to collect her ball. I huffed and flopped back on the bed, hoping that the grey slab of titanium-laced steel that made up the ceiling (and, come to think of it, the majority of the HQ) would burst into flame. After realizing that, no, the roof would _not_ buckle under the force of my glare; I rolled off of my bed and moved towards my locker out of habit. I reached forwards to undo the combination and halted mid-grab.

They had taken my gun, my ammo, even my laser sight.

I growled and moved back to my bed, sitting down hard. I flopped back, my head smacking into the _very_ solid wall. Ow.

_Stupid small bed._

I turned around, propping my legs up on 'my' wall. My head hung off of the other side slightly, allowing some of my hair to hang down. Closing my eyes, I began the long count to one thousand for the third time today.

The hiss of the air conditioning began to reverberate around the securely screwed-on air vents. How do I know that it was securely bolted down? Well, it just so happened that I'm slightly lighter than both of the twins, so I was made to climb on top of the promptly-constructed human ladder. Don't look at me that way. We had tried every single potential avenue of escape, no matter how cliché-sounding or stupid.

And yes, we _are_ that desperate.

I frowned, count still continuing in my head.

_Stupid policy. 'You might experience a phenomenon known as Cabin Fever,' they said. 'Stay calm, we are merely removing these weapons for your own good,' they said. 'You could do something to yourself or your friends that you would regret later,' they said._

_Yeah, while the three of us are tied to chairs with thick ropes, handcuffed, and gagged. Katy was _livid_. I learned a few new phrases that weren't in the category of crude vocabulary or coarse language._

I ran through the events of the last day once more, feeling… well, it wasn't _hate_, per se, but an extreme _annoyance_. That's it. An annoyance that could be channeled into planning escape routes, perfecting hand-eye coordination, preventing boredom, or _something _similarly destructive… but I'm getting off-topic.

I could hear water running before a sharp squeak cut through the wall. I glanced at the bathroom door to my right before resuming staring at my white socked feet, and hit two hundred in my mental count.

Katy hopped off her bed and began rummaging around for various personal hygiene items, including yet another bar of soap. I did not question her. Before, I had asked what the two were doing, and had learned that the twins were trying to discover whether you actually _could_ soap on a shadow (a la _Peter Pan_) out of pure boredom.

The results have been singularly negative, and both participants have been noted to complain about the sudden lack of grip while standing on the tile and cheap carpeting after each experiment.

The bathroom door opened, letting a sopping wet Bree into the room. She had probably fallen into the tub; her hair and jeans were all but streaming water onto the ratty carpet. She moved over to her locker to grab a spare change of clothes.

"Soap on the side won't work, Katy".

"Darn it!"

Katy bolted into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Bree squeaked and began to shout at the closed door.

"And don't turn on the-!"

_Wh… Whrr!_

"**AAHHH!**"

"…Fan…"

A small puff of dull pink dust blew out from the crack under the door. Bree began muttering about how Katy was _so_ going to track down and kill the person(s) who thought it was funny to break in and 'puff the fan with _pink_ flour and _glitter _while they were out on dish duty, and of all things _why_ did it _have_ to be _glitter_?

I twisted myself around and sat up, taking in the sight of Bree's spare change of clothes. Curiosity temporarily overcame my common sense.

"Um, Bree? Two questions."

It was time to crack the silence, and in the process, solve the ever-present mystery that surrounded the twins' wardrobe.

"Sure! What is it?"

"First, why is it that you and Katy have the same exact clothes, those ever-present jeans and grey t-shirt?" I gestured to her current ensemble.

"We're identical twins, silly! Where's the fun in wearing different clothes if you can tease others about not being able to tell the two of you apart?"

This made absolutely no sense to me at all. Wouldn't they get tired of being called by their sisters' names?

"…Right. Secondly, have you two actually found a way to remove your shadow?"

"Yep! Still need to keep sewing it on afterwards, though…"

I blinked, still processing what she just said. "How do you get it off?"

"It kinda involves a crowbar, the Otherpaths, and some duct tape…" Bree was cut off by an impatient knock on the door. I sighed.

"I'll head them off. Go change, Bree."

I walked up to the door; hearing muffled muttering on the other side. The bathroom door squealed open and shut behind me. A beep from a keycard filtered through the door, causing it to slide open. Johnny peered through the opening. And _grinned_.

"Hello there, my cleaning minions!"

A groan sounded out from the bathroom, and I ducked out of reflex. Three whizzing blurs thudded into the just-shut door in front of me. The sharp implements dropped, one by one, out of the moderately sized gouges they had created while I calmly regained my footing, all the while amazed at how I had become so used to this kind of thing so quickly.

_Where on earth did she get those knives when all of our weapons are supposed to be in lockdown? _

The twins came out of the bathroom wearing clothes that were mostly free of pink dust and water; however one had hair that was sopping wet. I stepped aside, allowing them to leave the room first. Looking at the back of their heads, I noticed that the dry twin still had a light pink sparkle to her hair. She bent down and picked up two of the knives, handing the other to her soggy sister. The three pieces of metal promptly disappeared into thin air as the twins stashed them into a hidden pocket, performing the same little bit of sleight-of-hand they had been working on the past few days.

But with paper, shaped like throwing knives.

I shook my head, walking out after them and heard the door slide shut behind me. We all continued walking towards Johnny, who was waiting patiently down the hall; mop and bucket in hand. Katy glared at his borderline smug expression.

"You're enjoying this _far_ too much for my… _sensitive_ tastes."

"Eheheh…" He scurried off down the hall, clutching his broom to his chest protectively. My little group resignedly followed him to the supply closets.

Let me give you a bit of back story about janitorial duty.

The word around Base has many renditions of when, where, and how it became dangerous to volunteer for the job.

Some say that it was when Slaying Societies became popular as an effort to fight back against the sheer amount of Mary Sues being written. Others say it began as the Societies turned into mere writing exercises to combat the clichés and fan girl squees of poemfics and songfics out there. Some even say that it all started with, what else, a conspiracy.

Personally, I believe that my current situation started with some bored girl having a brainstorm stemming from reading several extremely well-written fics, but I'm probably wrong.

Anyhow, with the increase of original characters that fight Sues and the resulting slew of juvenile potty jokes, it comes to us as no surprise that the many children employed by this Society will act like the animals they are, especially since there are so few adults around to supervise.

So it comes to the troublemakers (that were caught, anyhow) to clean up the numerous messes.

A few people passed by, either giving us looks of sympathy or laughing outright at our sorry group. Weighed down with cleaning supplies as we were, we couldn't do much in the way of retorts. A dull roar filled the hallway in front of me as the clock struck twelve. I whimpered in the back of my throat, hoping desperately that I could develop invisibility within the next three seconds to avoid the stares of the lunch rush.

The agony of a Suethor's bruised and burnt self-image in the aftermath of a flaming session from our professional kitchen staff could not compare to the battering, slashing, and maiming of our admittedly nonexistent egos during the past two days. I am unable to describe the sheer Torture that we went through, merely for the 'crime' of discovering the Otherpaths.

And yes, we did try to confront the commander on our 'punishment'…

* * *

"WHAT!"

An eavesdropping secretary squeaked in surprise and scurried away to avoid several falling chucks of drywall. This was an older section of the base, bear with me here.

"Don't yell at me."

"B-but, this-"

"-Is the best course of action in this situation. You all have been publicly disciplined; it would seem suspicious if you three were not seen doing the assigned punishment."

Katy's whole body jerked, obviously unused to being shut down so forcefully or completely before. Bree spoke up from her position next to me after it became apparent Katy had been successfully shocked into silence.

"I don't seem to recall you explaining why it's so important that no one knows about the Otherpaths."

The commander looked from Katy to me, steepling her fingertips on the imitation-wood desk.

"Jan, you remember your fight against the Sue in the Redwall canonverse."

"Yeah…?" I felt an eyebrow quirk unconsciously, and forced it down. The commander didn't give any reaction that she noticed.

"You were incapacitated by moderate Sparkly exposure. Nowadays among the Slayers of the Otherpaths, it's easily cured, but could be fatal or worse if left untreated. Garlic exposure would have forced a complete, if painful, purge of the sparkly from your system, so the preferred method of treatment is exposing the victim to liberal amounts of Anti-Sparklypoo. When the Plothole Generator procedure was invented, it allowed Slayers to enter the universe as-is, still following the real worlds' rules of gravity and so on. Since sparkly technically doesn't exist in the real world, an exposure leaves only a mild headache or irritates exposed mucous membranes…"

Judging by the twins' blank expressions, they had lost the commanders' train of thought on 'incapacitated'.

"… and in severe cases merely stuns the affected Slayer instead of converting him or her to Suedom."

The commander paused, looking at us. I turned this new information over in my head for a few moments before replying cautiously.

"… So, essentially the Plothole Generator protects you from turning into a Stu or Sue, which the Otherpaths doesn't necessarily do all the time."

The commander nodded, tapping a noticeably short nail against the desktop.

"Yes. The Generator procedure nullifies the many seductive abilities that sparkly gives to the Sues, and prevents the losses of personnel that would result. "

"But still, why use the Generator instead of the Otherpaths? We would have an edge against the Sues if we could twist the laws of that universe to our bidding – and as an added bonus, we wouldn't have to worry about any scars."

"The Generator procedure erases all traces of Slayer activity, including blunders like accidental contact with canon characters, from the canonverse. The only thing that is retained is the absence of the Stu or Sue that was causing the problem in the first place."

She still had not answered my question, but Katy asked her to explain before I could.

"Yes, it is true that the Slayers cannot access the Otherpaths to augment their strength and speed or use weapons and abilities from another canonverse, we will not lose manpower to sparkly exposure. Individuals may disappear, but the families and the paperwork _won't_. Questions would be raised, investigations would be started if the right person had the right contacts, and eventually the whole literary system might collapse."

Katy frowned. "About that; how do you keep all of this," she gestured vaguely at the room, "quiet? I know our parents or our guardians gave us permission to attend a 'uniquely "physical" school that would give us a head start as a writer'; I remember the advertisement just as well as the next person. How do you prevent the parents from stepping up and demanding that this Slayer organization be shut down once the kids return to their care?"

The commander leaned forwards onto her elbows and pulled off her glasses.

"Remember how your manuals mentioned a memory wipe?"

We all either nodded or mumbled something affirmative.

"The manuals weren't saying that for fun. The Otherpaths will forcefully step in and modify your memory once you reach the age of eighteen. You still remember your friends, but the training and fights that you all go through are replaced with studies on how to avoid writing incorrectly and physical demonstrations focused on clearing up descriptions of fight scenes. Yes, the muscle memory is retained, but even that little inconvenient bit of evidence fades in a year or so."

_Wha…? _I felt my jaw drop. Bree hissed in a breath while Katy's fidgeting hands froze.

"That reminds me." The commander pushed back from the desk to open a drawer. She rummaged through it, pulling a few papers out and placing them on the desk.

"Aha. Here we go." She drew three more small packets of paper from the drawer and slid them towards us. "Sign these."

Bree numbly picked up her paper but was able to quickly read through the first paragraph.

"Slayer Secrets Act? Benefits upon signing include reparations for any and all psychological or physiological trauma? Health coverage?" She snorted, and continued in a monotone. "...Why would we need this if we won't remember all of this anyways?"

"You three encountered the Otherpaths, in the sense that you three were forcefully 'claimed' by the Otherpaths when you were transported into the Redwall universe. It recognizes you as an individual person, not some hind of foreign matter, so it won't modify any information remotely related to it out of self-defense once you hit eighteen. The papers," she gestured at our packets, " are so we can contact you for instructing troops later, and also guarantee a decent pension if you sign."

Katy looked down and read another section of the paragraph quietly. After a few minutes, she looked up again. "… Hold on - let me sum this paragraph up in simple speech; 'In the event that we leak information that could be traced back to the Alliance'…?"

"Yes, all of the benefits would be revoked."

I slapped the paper back on the desk, ignoring Bree's startled squeak. "I don't get it. Provided we actually keep our memories, there has to be a more serious consequence for us. I can only imagine the beginning of all the problems that would be caused if the organization was found."

The commander calmly inspected her nails as she replied. "What do you think would happen?"

We stared at each other for a beat as I turned over the conversation in my head.

"I _really_ don't like this." Katy and Bree nodded in agreement, apparently coming to a similar conclusion. The commander sighed and looked at each of us in turn, shrugging in defeat.

"I don't either. But we need funding to keep this project going. Prices of garlic, equipment, weapons care products, ammunition… not to mention the accumulated salaries of everyone working here and money for repairs. There are people higher up on the totem pole than me, and they feel the need to contain those who are deemed potential… leaks."

I frowned and continued to read through all of the paperwork. After a moment, I sighed and placed the packet on the table, waiting for the twins to finish up.

Bree scowled at her packet and pushed it on the desk. "…Fine. 'S not like we had a choice in the matter. Where's that pen?"

The commander calmly handed Bree a pen, while Katy and I reluctantly followed suit.

The commander sighed after all of the papers were collected. She leaned back on her chair and folded her arms across her chest, her light tan jacket rustling.

"On a lighter note, you three wanted to complain about the janitorial duty?"

We all looked at each other and turned back to the commander, replying in unison.

"Yes."

Unfazed, she pulled out another packet of paper, from the left side of the desk this time, and skimmed over the contents of the first page before replying.

"Now, I have a mission that no one wants, but I am sure that it _might_ be slightly less dangerous than… cleaning."

I leaned forward, and the commander pushed the packet within my reach. I took it, skimming over the first page. Shrugging, I handed it to Katy, who immediately snatched it out of my hand. After a few seconds, I turned to see Katy sitting stock-still, and her face extremely pale. I frowned, pulling the packet out of her limp grasp and handed it to Bree on my left. She skimmed through the first paragraph, and slowly looked back at the commander, questioning and… fearful?

The commander pulled out a piece of paper and began writing something on it as she replied to the unspoken inquiry. "In light of the circumstances, I'm willing to drop all charges against you and give each of you a fitting bonus if you take this job. As you can see, this problem hasn't been addressed for far too long. I'm willing to provide backup…"

Katy still didn't look convinced. "Uh-huh. Could you give us a minute?"

Both twins stood up and walked over to the other end of the room. I remained where I sat, waiting for the two to finish up their conversation. In a few seconds, they had apparently finished and had taken their seats again at the desk. Katy spoke first.

"How much money are we talking here?"

"Does a twenty percent bonus sound acceptable?"

Bree frowned, still unconvinced. "Who will you assign to go with us?"

The commander waited a beat longer to answer this question.

"…I was thinking…Hmm." She snapped her fingers, a light smile coming to her face. "Ah, yes. Andre. He's been behaving himself too well lately… "

I, on the other hand, was confused. "That's kind of counter-productive, isn't it? I mean, sending someone on the worst job just because they're behaving themselves?"

The commander looked back towards Bree. "If it makes you feel any better, he hasn't had a demerit in a year."

Katy snapped her fingers. "Hold on. You _knew_ he was hand-in-hand with the leaders of the Great Lunch Rebellion six months ago."

"…Yes. I believe I did."

Katy remained insistent. "But you couldn't prove it."

The commander began studying her nails nonchalantly. Katy stretched, a predatory grin beginning to stretch across her face. She turned on her heel, throwing one last comment over her shoulder before opening the door.

"I'll get the leash."

* * *

So, in the end, the meeting did turn out in our favor, kind of. So, why are we still here, armed with mops and buckets?

The commander came up with an excuse - something about us fulfilling another day's punishment for appearance – in the end, I was just glad that I could get out of doing this for a full week.

But that still left us with the issue of surviving _today_…

We all entered a bathroom with a hastily scribbled 'OUT OF ORDER' sign hung over the plastic placard that usually denoted which gender was allowed into the room. I walked in without a second glance at the blue piece of plastic, dragging the yellow janitor's cart after me.

I propped the door open with the cart, allowing a semblance of fresh air to permeate the stagnant air of the bathroom. The twins had already begun circling around the stalls; each trying to deduce which of the ten needed to be taken care of first without looking in the doors. I reached around and, upon hearing the disgusted snort/groan of Katy, grabbed the plunger instead of the brush.

Bree walked towards the cart and picked up the three foot long brush along with the toilet soap instead. Katy hung back, grabbing the gloves, some soap, and another scrubbing brush. She moved towards the urinals, staring at the porcelain device with disgust before diving into her job with a speed usually reserved for dispatching a particularly beautiful!Stu.

I walked towards the far end of the row, looking back just in time to see Johnny kick open the first stall door and rush in with a battle cry, armed to the teeth with his own plunger and bowl brush.

Several wet punching sounds and a low, pained growl issued from Johnny's stall while I stared at the shut door in alarm. I turned towards the stall in front of me with dread, feeling Bree stiffen behind me.

"'s alright! I'm o_kay_!"

Johnny staggered out of the bathroom and leaned against the opposite wall, gasping for air. Katy stopped what she was doing, peering over her shoulder with a distinctly wierded-out expression. He shook his head and walked forwards again, moving to the next stall.

Before stepping in, he took one look at our _extremely_ hesitant body language and smirked.

"Don't worry about the rest, you just need to plunge and scrub them to get rid of the blue backwash. I took care of the main head."

We continued in our imitation of marble statues.

"…There won't be another one waiting for you in there."

I raised my eyebrow in disbelief, but he entered his stall without incident. After hearing nothing but the wet slosh of water I shrugged, took a deep breath, and stepped forward, gingerly pushing open the door with my plunger's handle.

Bree peered over my shoulder, staring into the porcelain. With an amazing display of frankness unseen until now, she was able to sum up our entire situation in just one measly word.

"Eew…"

* * *

I stepped out of the bathroom in my quarters, freshly showered and dressed. Katy and Bree had left earlier, citing something along the lines of 'errands', and thus were nowhere in sight. In the meantime, I decided to take advantage of the rare bit of silence.

I stretched out on my bed, stomach first, and pulled out my deck of cards. Holding half of the deck in one hand, I squeezed my fingers together and snapped, feeling the first twenty cards slide a little. Looking down, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was able to make some progress in spreading my fan, but there still was a noticeably solid chuck of cards still hovering under my thumb.

Frowning, I stacked the cards on top of each other and began practicing flipping the top card over, one handed.

I had finally been able to make the card fall _just_ right for the third time in a row when I heard some labored stomping outside of the room. I dropped the cards and moved to open the door.

As the door slid open, two extremely weighted-down twins staggered through the opening. I hurried to go help them, upon my approach identifying most of the weight to be the standardized garlic hollow-point ammunition and throwing knives. I paused when my securely locked pistol case came into view.

"How did you get these back?" I rescued my gun from where it was teetering on Katy's shoulder.

Bree bounced away from her bed, apparently very pleased with herself. Katy just sighed and began moving her share of the weapons to her locker, her nunchacku hanging on her arm. Bree called my attention back to her as she began to reinsert all of her knives back into her three-pouch belt.

"I just pulled a few strings, and then called some favors here and there, so here we are!"

I stopped, turning to face the twin who had just spoken. "Bree…"

"My dear Jan." Katy's tone was teetering on the verge of going form chiding to condescending as she walked towards her bed. "Don't look gift horses in the mouth. If you keep doing this, I might just think that you are exactly half of an eleven pound slab of black forest ham."

"What?"

"Just chill, we're fine. The commander gave us her blessing and everything; it was the desk jockey that gave us all of the trouble."

"I wasn't asking about that-"

"There. Now that that's settled, why don't we get going to the training grounds? Trust me, we're gonna need it."

I felt a vague sense of déjà-vu as I speechlessly watched the twins gather their assorted weapons and walk out of the room. I shut my gaping jaw and glanced helplessly at my pack of playing cards.

"Did you get what just happened?"

The cards stayed motionless and silent.

I chuckled humorlessly. "You too? I really thought they were sane for a second there…"

I threw myself flat on the cheap mattress as something whizzed overhead.

"We are NOT sane. In any way, shape, or form. Get it _right_."

I could only whimper in response as I heard Katy's angrily retreating footsteps echo through the open door.

Maybe I _should_ hide out at the firing range…


	5. Chapter 5

_Remember the fox-Sue from the other chapter? Yeah, that one. Read on._

* * *

The commander hummed as she walked into her office, steaming mug of coffee in hand. She gulped down some of the liquid and set it on her desk, walking over to her filing cabinets. She hummed as she pulled a series of files out of the drawer and walked out of the office. Stepping into the elevator, she lazily flashed her communicator's I.D. number at the hidden camera and allowed it to scan her retina. She leaned against the side of the mesh cage with a sigh as the lift began to descend. After a while, a blast of noticeably colder air blew through the floor.

The commander stepped out of the lift into a large white room. There were almost no pieces of furniture, just three long tables with various half-completed projects scattered about on them, one computer, a centrifuge, two chairs on opposite ends of the room, and a smattering of shelves around all four walls holding different colored liquids. A walk-in freezer sat quietly on the left-hand side of the room. A series of floor-to-ceiling cylinders that one might have found in a mad scientist's lab hummed quietly in the far corner, one of which held an unconscious silver fox with tribal tattoos in an upright position.

The commander strode over to the computer and moved to turn it on, but paused and turned around when she heard the tell-tale whoosh of an Otherpath portal opening. Her eyes widened as the first EP card flew out.

"No. Oh no. No, no-**AAGH**!" The commander scrambled gracelessly onto the furthest table possible and pulled a chair up after her for shelter as a shower of EP cards spilled out of the portal and covered the floor in a generous heap.

* * *

_It will see you. You will taunt it. Run into the forest to escape it, dodging around the various pine branches, roots, rocks, and decaying logs while keeping your footing on the slippery pine needles. Duck behind some cover to catch your breath. Listen for the telltale crunch and rustle of something walking towards you. Ready your weapon. Whip around and attack. Wait for the Sue to dissolve completely. Dust yourself off, trudge back to Forks High School, rinse, repeat. _

_Unless, of course, they decide to give you the courtesy of coming to you first._

_If that happens, run in the direction of _away_ until you can get a good shot at them. Your Anti-Adjective Adornments should nullify their speed and enhanced senses long enough for you to get into position._

_And I cannot stress how important it is that you three don't use the Otherpaths after you've gone through the Plothole Generator. Why? Well let's just say that if you do, you'll create a space-time loop so vicious that you'll be wearing your insides for a poncho… if you're lucky._

…That's what the commander said in the briefing, anyways. At least she was nice and gave us a simple explanation this time. The only problem was applying that theory to an actual combat situation.

'_Don't do anything to risk the canonverse… And don't get killed.'_

Yeah, right. The first one is easy to follow, but the second?

…Not so much.

I heard an energy crackle coming from somewhere behind me and fell to the ground with a wet squelch, the black pulse sparking as it sailed over my head. I sighed and rolled over onto my stomach, bringing my weapon level with the Sue.

I could see why this mission had been put off for so long. That was the third energybending!vampire!Sue I had run across in the past half hour, not including the two elemental!OCs that had tried to suck me dry. Seeing that it was preoccupied with obsessing over just how powerful that last attack was, I fired, hitting the Sue in the chest. It shrieked in pain, dissolving into ashes blown away on a nonexistent breeze.

I picked myself up off of the ground and put my gun into its holster, then shook my cargo pants in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the coating of mud. Giving it up as a lost cause, I started to trudge back towards the school, wiping my free hand on the only clean patch of fabric left on my person before sending a request out for everyone to regroup at the high school sign in fifteen minutes or so.

_The only good thing about working in a perfect world is that there's always three bars of cell phone reception. No more dropped calls, as Cingulair used to say… _I frowned as an important thought struck me and rubbed my chin.

_Does that company even _exist_ anymore? _

I put the communicator away and turned into the direction that would get me out of the forest the quickest. I hummed and snapped my fingers, walking in rhythm to a particularly annoying song that was stuck in my head, courtesy of Bree.

"It's.- The.- Eye of the ti-ger, it's the king of _the_ FIGHT! Ri-sing up! To the cha-lenge of our ri-vals! And. The las-"

A musically shrieking Sue-bat flew overhead, drowning out my singing. Frowning in irritation, I stared at it for a second before pulling out my gun and firing. I missed, which only made it shout louder. I aimed again, my frown twisting into a disgusted sneer. Its angry cries morphed into a squeal after I hit it in the wing. It flipped spout over kettle, ramming its nose into one of the many tree trunks with a wet crunch. I stopped walking. It painfully peeled its face off of the tree and flopped onto the ground. After watching it twitch for a minute, it gave a final shudder and went limp, dissolving into a small cloud of smoke. I shrugged and moved on, pulling out the communicator and marking down two minor casualties, kudos to yours truly.

Due to the sheer amount of Sues, the commander had decided to give us a break and set us a quota instead of the mountain of individual assignments that we usually receive. Two cards fell out of nowhere and dropped in front of me, which I put into my pack pocket without a second glance. I slowed my pace, accidentally tripping over a pine tree root and falling on my chest. Growling, I pushed my hands against the muddy ground and tried to brush away the freezing muck and failed. I jogged out of the forest, immediately feeling like some kind of subconscious pressure had been lifted off of my chest. I shivered in the cool air before making my way towards the school.

* * *

Two slayers stood side by side, leaning against a sign that proudly declared "FORKS HIGH SCHOOL: HOME OF THE SPARTANS". The ground around the school twisted and warped, a visual indication of the sheer quantity of Sues inside the fortress. Both slayers weren't watching this however, or the occasional zombie-like throwaway character that wandered out of the school doors to greet yet another visibly shining new arrival. No, the boy and the girl were both hunched close to each other, miserably hoping that their close proximity would help to fight the ever-present chill that snaked its way down the openings in their windbreakers. In between them was a thin tablet, showing a tentative plan to infiltrate and eradicate multiple targets. With a frustrated growl, the girl tapped the side of the tablet with a bit more force than was necessary, erasing the scribbles coating the surface.

"You keep forgetting that we'll be overwhelmed by their sparkly when they scurry out of their anthill! I still say we go with the nuke 'n scrub."

Andre motioned to the tablet. "And I'm telling you that'll just make the ones that will escape or regenerate angry at us! At least they're in a place that we can monitor them."

"Monitoring them is what got us into this situation in the first place. I don't see any other way to get 'em out of there and keep _us_ alive!"

With a grumble, Andre folded his arms and turned towards the school, watching the ground distort into a green whirlpool that silently sucked several zombie-like filler characters in. Other minor characters hovered over the school, waiting for the command from their suethor to fly in through the window and attack their main character. Thousands of copies of Edward and Bella coated the lawn, stupidly staring into each other's eyes as a legion of desperately hungry Jaspers perched on the edge of the roof, waiting for Bella to prick her finger on a blade of grass.

Katy snapped her fingers, causing Andre to jerk out of his musings. "I've got it! You'll love this."

She rummaged through her pack, pulling out a flash drive that was immediately plugged into the tablet, causing the tentative blueprints of the school grounds to be pulled up.

"See this? If we lay down a garlic powder line around the school and then blow up everything - and I mean EVERYTHING- the Sues won't be able to cross to safety!"

Andre's eyebrows furrowed in concentration, playing over the potential possibilities. "Garlic C-4? You're right. That _is_ brilliant. But… won't the garlic line move or be broken when the explosion goes off?"

Katy continued to rummage through her pack, pulling out a case of several explosives and a spool of wire. "Won't matter. As soon as the Sues feel the heat from the bang, it'll be too late for them. The powder line just prevents them from leaving before _that_."

"I'm he-ere~! Heya Andre!" Bree crunched, squished, and tapped up the continually-changing street and plopped next to Katy, pulling her pack out to rummage through it.

The ground had changed from gravel to asphalt to grass twice over before the other twin pulled out a sandwich, the pungent odor of onions wafting up on the irregular breeze. Katy ignored this in favor of staring at the horizon.

Amidst the smog of pink sparklypoo expelled from the school, a hazy figure walked out of the cover of the forest and up the road, something small and indistinct flitting around her head. The girl trudged closer, causing Katy to blink in surprise. A fine coating of globby congealed muck and sue-blood covered Jan's pants and the front of her windbreaker, gray-green streaks running through her hair where she had brushed it back with her mud-covered hands. A scowl seemed to be semi-permanently etched on her face, becoming ever-so-slightly deeper with each step towards the little group. A see-through bat silently flapped five feet overhead, a look of abject terror frozen on its face as it was tugged unwillingly behind the rookie Slayer.

Katy gave a low whistle and clapped slowly, causing Jan to whip her head up from staring a hole in the ground. Katy's grin became wider. "My, my, my. Our little baby has just met the dirtier side of the job." She faked a sniffle and wiped away a nonexistent tear. "I'm just so _proud_!"

Jan came to a stop and pointed a slightly shaking forefinger towards Katy. "Shut. Up."

Katy ignored the venom laced in that statement and walked up to her, staring curiously at the bat as it landed on Jan's shoulder. "I didn't know you got a pet."

Jan threw up her arms with a groan. "How was I supposed to know that the stupid singing Sue-bat would come back and start following me around?" The bat nodded miserably in agreement, but threw an indignant look at the back of Jan's heat at the 'stupid' comment. Jan looked away, stuffing her cold hands into her jacket. She groaned as she pulled her slightly-cleaner hands out of her just-dirtied pockets.

Bree popped up and began to closely scrutinize Jan's predicament. Her look of concentration morphed into one of pity. "Ooh… That's not gonna come out, is it?"

Jan stomped behind the sign and flopped on her back, the bat taking off of her shoulder and flying away. However, its flight was checked by an invisible wall exactly five feet from where Jan lay. With a pained squeal, the bat gave up its frenzied flapping and landed on the sign. Jan rubbed her jacket front absentmindedly and closed her eyes. "Does _anyone_ have an idea to get rid of them all in one go, 'cuz obviously this isn't working."

Bree and Katy simultaneously looked down at their mud and rain-soaked clothes. Katy snorted and pulled out her tablet. "We're going with the nuke 'n scrub."

Jan sat up and stared at Katy. "I thought that was a last resort? Only if it was a life-and-death situation?"

Katy nodded. "It _is_, but since this book isn't a threat to national security," a muttered, '_even though it should be_' was heard and ignored, "we aren't gonna scrub everything, just… 'frag the school."

Jan nodded and sat up. "What's the plan?"

* * *

Bertrand, as the bat was now named, sat on Jan's shoulder and watched in curiosity. After a quick garlic spray, which didn't do anything to it, Bree had spontaneously decided to give it a name since it oh-so-obviously wasn't of the Sue persuasion anymore.

Whilst cheerily juggling three grenades (completely oblivious to the psychological effects, mind you).

So, no one was brave enough to disagree with her, and at least the bat seemed enjoy the attention.

The four slayers reached the other side of the school at the same time, discarding the garlic powder containers. With their Anti-Adjective Adornments (AAA's) filters cranked up to maximum, the four Slayers walked unnoticed between the Stus and Sues up to the edge of the building. The clouds of sparklypoo pressed against their spherical shields as their AAA badges pulsed a steady green. The four quickly spread out, Katy and Andre rushing inside with a large spool of wire and a pack of small plastic explosives manufactured with garlic powder inside.

Bree and Jan circled outside of the school, planting their packs on the corners of the building. The ground shifted and Bree stumbled, dropping an explosive. Jan picked it up without breaking stride, fastening it above a window. Bree turned and shrugged apologetically while sticking another explosive next to a support pillar that kept blinking in and out of existence.

A fire bell inside of the school rang, and the dull roar of conversation muffled by the walls morphed into panicked shrieks. Bree and Jan looked at each other and hurried to place the last explosives before rushing to the edge of the perimeter. Exit doors were slammed open, a myriad of Sues flowing out of the building in a rushing stream…

"Get back! They're gonna break the AAA's!" Katy screamed out as she fought to stay ahead of the surge, Andre running next to her. A beeping noise caused Jan to look down, her AAA clipped to her belt beginning to flash red.

Bree and Jan turned away from the duo, Katy and Andre at their heels. Characters dodged left and right, avoiding the thin stream of garlic oil that Bree had the presence of mind to spray ahead into the pandemonium. The four slayers threw themselves forwards, barely clearing the garlic line before a huge explosion made the formerly cold air go up in flames.

* * *

Today was definitely _not_ her day.

The commander rubbed her temples. She looked up from the table and leveled her eyes at the sorry group in front of her. Katy and Andre squirmed, while Bree and Jan demonstrated an amazing imitation of the classic deer-caught-in-the-headlights look.

Andre and Katy were slightly more blackened than Bree and Jan, but it was a close thing. All four were marching stiffly, the parts of their necks that weren't covered by their clothes or crusting mud was reddened from the heat of the explosion.

"You're lucky that that stunt didn't kill you. What on _earth_ were you _thinking_? Do you _even_ recall the orders I gave you?"

The commander stalked out behind the desk, the four slayers wilting as the commander laid eyes on each of them.

"Don't. Do. Anything. To. Risk. The. Canonverse. That was what I said, was it not?" No one moved. "If I recall," the commander turned towards the wall and snagged a manual, flipping to a previously bookmarked page and cleared her throat, "destroying any building, be it a school, home, gymnasium, skyscraper, etc. etc., that has had a major scene enacted therein will put the _entire_ canonverse at serious risk from the concentration of plot threads that anchor on this fictional construct."

The commander slapped the handbook shut, causing everyone to flinch, and replaced it on the shelf.

"You were lucky that you didn't collapse the four main support pillars. One was damaged, but that has been taken care of. The building has repaired itself." She rapped her fingernails rhythmically on the shelf, back still turned towards us. "I know that _at least_ one of you here is a Twilight series hater," Katy winced _almost_ imperceptibly, "but it is _not _your duty to destroy the canonverse of _any_ book, no matter how atrocious that canonverse may be to you. Have I made myself clear?"

Everyone muttered their assent. The commander sighed and turned around, sitting down at her desk. She opened up a drawer and pulled some documents out of a file, signing them and stamping them with red ink. She put those files back into her desk and pulled out two flash drives, placing them both on the desk and indicating to Andre and I to pick them up.

"You four are going to do this mission again, and you are going to do it _properly_. Take one day for recovery, no surface time, and no access to the arcade. Internet access will be cut off for all four of you until the mission is completed. That will be all." The commander turned back to her work, leaving us to file out quietly.

* * *

In the hall, Katy growled and scratched at her arm, pulling up the material and revealing the tip of a pale scar. "I'm going to the training area. Need to blow off some steam." Shouldering her way through the crowd, and knocking a few of the smaller passerby on their rear ends, Katy reached the end of the hall and turned right, disappearing into the crowd heading towards her aforementioned destination.

Bree's stomach growled, causing Andre and I to turn our heads toward her in tandem. Bree gave a sheepish shrug and scurried off towards the cafeteria, tossing a faint "catch ya at the room" over her shoulder.

Andre and I walked towards the bunks in silence, occasionally pressing up against the walls as the jostling and shrieking mobs of teenagers rushed past us. Andre sighed and put his hands in his pockets, which were _much_ cleaner than mine, by the way. His brow was furrowed, and a frown slashed across the lower part of his face. I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it.

"What'cha gonna do now?"

My mouth snapped shut as my brain involuntarily backtracked. What _was_ I going to do when I got back? "…Probably gonna just clean off and train some more. What are you gonna do?"

He shrugged. "Well, I usually like to read the online comics after a hard mission…" He trailed off, eyes unfocusing as he stopped short. I turned backwards with some concern.

"What is it?"

Andre gave me a pained look. I blinked, before beginning to grin evilly. "No computers, huh? That's harsh."

Andre's eye twitched, replying with a near-whimper. "Thank you _so_ much for reminding me." He turned away, muttering under his breath about friends in Japan not sending him his manga. I snickered and started walking again, Andre following behind me. He drew even with me and cleared his throat into his hand."So, any ideas on how to fix the Sue problem in the forest?"

I looked back at Andre in confusion."I thought we were scrubbing the school again."

Andre shook his head. "No, we took care of most of the problem at the school. The flash drive says that we're gonna have to take care of the forest this time. " He waved his drive for emphasis.

I shrugged, fingering my flash drive as I pondered. "We might have to set up a trap outside of the forest and lure all of the Sues out at once, and scrub the meadow. The plot web is happy since we're not gonna be near any major scene reenactments, the commander is happy, and we're home free."

"Yeah, but I have a bad feeling about this whole business, with the forest and all."

I looked at him sideways. "…What do you mean by that?"

He scratched his ear and shrugged. "It's just… I thought… Well, you know…" He shifted a bit before shrugging out a subdued, "…never mind."

I looked away, frowning. "Whatever."

He shifted, and I heard the crackle of dried mud coming loose from his windbreaker. "What do you think about the mission, how it turned out, I mean?" I stopped in front of a door, noticing for the first time that we had arrived outside of the dorm room. I tapped my fingers on the card key lock before replying.

"Well, I'm just glad that nothing turned out bad." I turned away as I felt my face begin to heat up. _How stupid an answer could you give, Jan? Let's hear it for Ms. pathetic here!_

Andre laughed and rubbed the back of his neck again. "I guess that just about sums everything up. See you tomorrow?" I nodded, fumbling my keycard out of my pocket and opening the sliding door. Andre turned and left as I went in.

* * *

I walked over to my hanging laundry net and shoved my crusty windbreaker inside. Muck broke off of the surface and showered into a little circle on the ground. I flopped onto the ground next to my bed on my back, mindful of the filth coating my clothes. I stared at nothing for a few minutes before rolling over and sitting up. Groaning, I felt my face grow hot as I fell back down onto the floor and proceeded to slowly bang my forehead against the ground for a few seconds.

_How _could I be so _stupid_?

I took my pillow and threw it at the far wall, hearing it smack against the door and flop onto the floor. I took a deep breath and sat up, deciding that my pity party was done and that I should just get on in my life.

I should have known I couldn't just let myself off the hook that easily. In my head, my own voice began to cackle at me in a high-pitched mockery.

'_Well, I'm just glad that nothing turned out bad'? That has to be the lamest answer anyone's ever given! What were you_ thinking_, Jan!_

_Well obviously, I _wasn't.

Yipee. Another snide voice decides to pop in.

_Seriously, you shouldn't have let Katy do the scrub. You read the manual. You should have known what could happen._

_Yeah, but I was _exhausted_. That was the _tenth _time I had been chased at least block or more by a sue, and let's not forget Katy, Bree, and Andre. Who knows how many times that happened to them?_

_No buts! It was your _duty_ to be _responsible_!_

Voice no. 2 was struggling to come up with a comeback, but stopped short as a blue and gold portal flickered to life in front of me. I had barely any time to react before a gray blur zipped through the opening and slammed into the wall five feet away from me.

I was up and pointing my gun at the limp grey bundle on the floor. My fingers twitched as the lump gave a tiny groan as lifting its head up and flopping, its pink tongue hanging out as it panted. I slowly lowered my gun, realizing what had just popped in.

"_Bertrand_?"

The bat gave me a feeble look over its shoulder and flopped spread-eagled on the floor.

I walked over slowly and nudged Bertrand with the tip of my boot. The bat squeaked pitifully. I bent over and pinched the scruff of his neck with a thumb and forefinger, lifting him up towards my face.

Bertrand gave me a dirty look and fell limp.

The swishing sound of a keycard caused me to jump a foot in the air. I jerked Bertrand behind my back while I looked around wildly for a pillow or cushion to hide him behind. Coincidentally, Katy's bed was the one nearest to my position so I jammed him behind the overstuffed pillow Katy had smuggled in from the surface. I had moved to stand in front of my locker just as Katy walked in through the front door. I turned back towards her, sagging onto the floor in relief, mindful of my still-filthy clothes.

"Katy, you wouldn't believe what just happened."

Katy looked at me as she opened her locker and put away her throwing knives and nunchacku. She had apparently taken a shower at the locker rooms and dressed in her spare workout shorts and t-shirt, exposing some scars running up her forearms that I hadn't noticed before."What's going on?"

I took a deep breath. "Bertrand's here."

It took her a few seconds to process this. "Wait, _what_?"

"Bertrand. The bat. The one I _killed_. He's _here_."

Katy crossed her arms, unconvinced. "Well… where is he?"

I gave her a sheepish look."… Under your pillow?"

She blinked. "You stuck it under my _what_?" She stood up and walked towards her bed, reaching for her pillow. "I thought you couldn't touch it in the first pla-…"

She froze. Bertrand's gray furred face stared back at her.

Katy _shrieked_.

Backpedaling, Katy pulled a knife out of her t-shirt sleeve and threw it haphazardly, barely missing the snout of the poor bat. She literally bounced away from her bed, kicking up a tiny dust cloud and slamming the bathroom door shut behind her in one motion.

After a moment I walked towards the door and knocked. A muffled "_I could be wrong_" drifted out from the crack near the floor.

"Um, Katy? I kinda need you out here to talk to you face to face."

The door opened and Katy shakily walked out. I grabbed Bertrand and held him in my hand, sitting heavily on the floor. "So, what do we do with him?"

"I should be asking _you_ that. He's your bat."

I was about to reply that no, he was not in fact _my_ bat, but the door sliding open cut off whatever I was going to say. The smell of cafeteria food wafted through the door with Bree as she skipped inside and moved to her locker. I waved her over.

"Bree! Just the person I wanted to talk to."

Bree cheerily dumped her windbreaker into her laundry net and turned around. "Yeah?"

I wordlessly held up Bertrand, who looked around the room curiously.

"…That's Bertrand."

I nodded. Bree bent over Bertrand, staring at him curiously. The bat stared back. Bree straightened up and grinned ecstatically.

"Can we keep him?"

* * *

Someone passing dorm room fifty-nine jumped as a peculiarly loud smack concurrent with the sound of a faceplant rang out from behind the closed door.

* * *

"Is the commander in her office?"

Jake the Temporary Secretary, or so his nameplate proclaimed, peered over his monitor at Katy, Bree, and Jan. All appeared to be much cleaner than their earlier visit, although the backs of their necks seemed to be unusually red. He smirked, remembering the office gossip, and shook his head no.

"Sorry, but she left about fifteen minutes ago. She told me she was off to 'clean up a mess' if I deciphered her grumblings correctly."

The trio looked at each other nervously. There was a saying around the base, 'if you want entertainment there's no need for TV, just watch the rookies'. Jake wondered what had happened now.

One of the twins spoke up. "Could you call her up? It's kind of important."

Eyebrow quirked, Jake reached for the phone and punched in a number. He frowned as he was transferred to her voicemail. A weird, unidentifiable look spread across his face. When he began to speak, his tone had changed from no-nonsense and matter of fact to something that could only be described as a plaintive whine.

"…Commander? The twins and the rookie from cell fifty-nine are here and they're looking at me with these wide innocent eyes and I don't know what to do! **HEEEEELP**!" He slammed the phone down, folded his hands, and looked straight at us, completely deadpan.

"I'll call you when she gets back to me."

"Uh… yeah. You do that." I edged carefully away from the desk and started walking towards the dorms, the twins following behind closely, quietly bickering over who got to keep one of their lucky knives.

* * *

Entering our room, the twins and I set about on the all-important task of gathering our harvested EP cards. I pulled my grungy pants out of the hamper and retrieved the bits of plastic. I came up with twelve.

Katy pulled out her twenty-something EP cards from her windbreaker pocket and tossed it into her locker, while Bree held hers in her hand like a deck of cards and counted them over as a miser would.

I looked at my meager pile, feeling as if something was off about the whole thing. Bree made a puttering noise, so I turned to see her lifting a card off of her deck. She made the card swoop around her head, producing the obligatory plane noises. I stared as she reached over the side of her bed and dropped the card, imitating an explosion as it hit the ground.

Something clicked.

"Hold up. What happened to all of the EP cards from the nuke 'n' scrub?"

* * *

_Ending notes:_

_Thought I'd need something for comic relief later. Why not an ex sue-bat? (Haha, Zubat… *awkward silence* …it's a Pokémon reference… *awkward silence continues* nevermind…)_

_He doesn't look like a Zubat, by the way. I drew a pic of him. It's on deviant ART . com, my username there is AlltheAces1. It should be on the recent pics list._

_And yes, I do have a confession. I did read Twilight, but came away feeling less than satisfied. I, personally, do not see how a girl too stupid to get away from, and consequently and falling in love with, a vampire of all things is romantic and inspiring._

_True love, shmue love. Here's my advice: stay in your own species, and find Mr. Right _there_._


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: EDITED AND REPOSTED 9/1/11 DUE TO AN ISSUE BROUGHT UP BY A CONCERNED REVIEWER. I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE OR DISAPPOINTMENT.

Apparently, there was some confusion as to the specific gender of Bertrand. I meant the phrase 'sue-bat' as a generalization, not to denote the gender of the bat.

Bertrand is male, and will continue to be until he dies. If he dies.

Jan was just tired from the running, jumping, fighting, and whatever else happened while she was in the Twilight 'verse, and was consequently unconcerned with the details.

Now, on with the story.

* * *

It was a little-known fact that there was, in fact, a Laundry Day at the Slayer's Alliance.

Frankly, it was a little-known fact that there existed a Slayer's Alliance in the first place, but I digress.

The lines to floor 5's Laundromat stretched from one end of the lengthy hallway to the other. There was noticeable element of impatience as muted conversation buzzed through the stuffy air.

"…whose dirty socks…"

"…did you hear about the girl who…"

"…yeah, and it… up and ate the vet's braid… Thought he was going to shoot it…"

I sighed and shifted the laundry net I held slung over my back, loosening the painfully bunched fabric under the drawstring. The twins chattered and bickered cheerfully, studiously ignoring the unpleasant odors emitting from the line of laundry nets so similar to their own.

According to the twins, the commander had ordered a laundry day after she had been knocked to the floor by the smell wafting out of an open dorm. Literally.

Laundry day had to be done on Sunday, after the 0900 church services. Even if every floor had a full-scale Laundromat open twenty-four seven, people simply pushed off doing their laundry, whether it be hating the chore, or simply too busy to do it any other day. So, as it was, we had to wait for a few hours until a machine opened for us.

Agreeing that it would take less time if we all washed our clothes in the same machine, we tossed our bags into the washing machine and walked towards a personalized Undergarment Sanitization Unit, known as 'USU's around the base, carrying our 'white' articles. People in hazmat suits walked past my little group, leaving behind a wall of newly sanitized USUs.

I had started my load before the twins, due to their small scrabble to determine which one of them would pay for both of their loads, which Bree won.

Katy grumpily scrounged around her pockets for spare change, deposited her clothes in the unit, and skulked off to harass someone else. I warily watched Katy's retreating back until it was out of sight before turning towards Bree, thinking about the assignment.

"So… is there any news on the situation for the Twilight forest? That place is a tactical _nightmare_…"

Bree stared at me blankly for a moment, then blinked and shook her head no. "I'm still working on getting some heavy-duty equipment."

I began to feel a glimmer of hope shine through my gloomy outlook as I stood next to the USU wall. "That 'heavy duty equipment' of yours wouldn't happen to be along the lines of a tank?" I asked hopefully.

"Not really. It's hard to fit one of those through a plothole." She drummed her fingers on the led of her pants, watching the clothes in her washer go 'round and 'round. "I was thinking more of a couple of rocket launchers and some more backup…"

I felt my heart plummet. I half-listened to Bree as she continued to talk.

"…and you _did_ learn how to use the assault rifles in training, right?"

I hummed in the affirmative absently, still absorbed in my pity-party. "Yeah, was a pretty good shot with it too… wait, did you say _rifle_? As in the M-16 series automatics that everyone was supposed to train on?"

"The one and the same." Bree grinned before turning back to the wash load. She stared in fascination at the swirling clothes for a few moments before the healthy clanging of my head beating against metal siding rang through the stuffy air. She jerked out of her reverie and looked at me in some concern.

"Aargh… " I slammed my forehead on the washer, again, and then let my head rest on warm metal. Bree walked up to me, slightly concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I… kinda didn't like using the rifle in the combat simulations…"

"Why's that?"

"…It made everything too easy…"

"But that just means that you're a good shot!"

I shrugged, lifting my hand up to make a movement with it, "…yeah, but…"

"Great! No problem then!" Bree turned quickly and skipped away after her sister, whistling. I was left with my hand in the air, staring at the back of her retreating head, "…that's not… what I meant…"

I blinked, feeling left out. Then cold reality hit me.

I was alone.

In the USU area.

I slowly edged away from 'my' USU, which had begun to growl ferally.

* * *

After finishing our laundry, our little group tramped back to our bunk in silence. The harried secretaries rushed by, sometimes pushing us into the walls with muttered apologies. Katy fiddled with her long-sleeve shirt and looked over her shoulder at me. "Are you gonna need some practice with the rifle for tomorrow?"

I thought about it and shook my head no. Katy quirked an eyebrow. "Do you want to go to the armory with us, then? We're leaving right after we drop our bags off."

"By all means, lead the way."

Katy opened the door to the dorm and stepped in, setting to work putting her clothes away. I reached behind my back and unlatched Bertrand from his perch under my jacket's hood. Yawning, Bertrand regained his bearings and flapped towards my bed, collapsing onto the comforter with a muffled sigh of irritation.

He must be really tired. He didn't even blow a raspberry.

I carefully stepped away from my bed, focusing on releasing an invisible leash connected to the prone form of the bat. I was able to reach the other side of the bunker without incident, some fifteen feet away.

After coming to the realization that Bertrand was invisibly tethered to me somehow, I had tried to extend the length of my new pet's 'leash' out of necessity.

Bertrand was Bertrand, and, being a bat, gave off a horrendous stench after sweating under my jackets' hood after an hour. I was able to increase the radius to about one hundred feet, but one step outside of that boundary caused Bertrand to be flung, screaming, into the five-foot perimeter with a very battered snout and a deeply bruised ego.

Once we asked the commander about our situation, she just shrugged and told us to keep him under wraps until she could work on allowing pets into the Society.

I walked towards my locker and opened it, packing my clothes into the drawers on the bottom. Bree slammed her door shut and flopped onto her bed, waiting for Katy to finish picking up her mess in the bathroom. I followed Bree's example and sat on my bed, absentmindedly stroking Bertrand's fur. He purred back at me in contentment.

Katy emerged from the bathroom and walked towards her locker, pulling out a light jacket. Bree did the same. I prodded Bertrand with my finger, picking him up and placing him on my back. He crawled up under my hood and fastened his feet to the seam with a tired grunt as I followed the twins out of the room.

* * *

I honestly had no idea what to expect when I entered the armory.

Sure, I knew there would be a rack of M-16 series rifles, maybe some ammunition boxes haphazardly organized by some bookie that had better things to do with his time than sort explosive garlic ammunition. Maybe even a small display on the wall left as homage to days gone by.

I was wrong.

The first thing you noticed about the armory was the air. The chill came first, then the climate-controlled dryness. The next thing you noticed was a muted smell of manufacturer's oil and metal, overlaid with the barest traces of garlic.

And then you stepped through the six-inch thick metal security door.

The temperature dropped to a low seventy-something Fahrenheit, and kept falling as we continued in. The roof of the underground warehouse spanned far overhead, but I was too preoccupied with gaping at the racks of weapons about thirty feet in.

Aisle upon aisle of ammunition, grenades, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines, pistols, and machine guns of all sizes continued on for about two acres. I had known that the Slayer's Alliance was huge, considering the amount of personnel kept on staff, but I had not realized how _immense_ it was until now.

"Close it, Jan. You'd be catching flies if there were any."

My mouth clicked shut. Katy turned around, following Bree towards the close combat weapons. I looked up at the ceiling once again, noting absently that it had to be at least fifty feet overhead. I walked towards the low hum of the twins' chatter, still staring up. I brought my attention back to where I was walking once I nearly ran into a display rack.

I heard one of the twins ask an indistinct question and receive a reply; there was someone else down here. I hurried towards the voices, rounding a corner lined with more ammunition boxes labeled GRENADES - DO NOT NUDGE EXCESSIVELY HARD in a messy scrawl. A tall boy of about fifteen in jeans, a t-shirt, and a brown apron was examining one of Katy's nunchacku, while Bree was staring at a rack of various pointy things behind her sibling. She had pulled a sai off of its rack by the time I had reached the little group.

"…a scheduled Twilight mission. No, no, we just need a few… things." Katy had cut off the boy, which had just drawn up the courage to protest.

"I still need written permission from the com-" Katy turned away from the boy and plunged her hand into her happily oblivious sister's pocket, pulling out a rumpled piece of paper and shoved it at the boy, "-mander. Oh." He skimmed the paper a bit before scrutinizing the signature on the back. He turned it around slightly, stopping once he was satisfied. He folded the paper and put it into a pocket on his apron.

"Everything seems to be in order," he shrugged, handed Katy her weapon back, and turned away, calling over his shoulder, "I'll get you that list of people you requested, fighting styles, weapons, the whole shabazz. You should get some polish for your weapons, too."

Bree called back a cheery thank you. Katy hummed out her thanks as well and turned, twirling her nunchacku absentmindedly. Bree was spinning the sai over her knuckles like an old pro. Slightly intimidated, I slowly backed out of the aisle and ran after the attendant. Catching up to him, I asked where the rifles were kept. He pointed out an aisle on the opposite end of the building. I thanked him and ran off. Upon reaching the aisle, I stopped. There, on the racks, was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

Semi-automatic and automatic firearms graced the walls. But it wasn't just _any_ kind of cheap firearms, oh no. Handguns of just about every brand and make lined one wall, the blackened steel of the barrels dully glinting in the fluorescent light. The other wall held hundreds of fully automatic assault rifles. I quickly backed out of the aisle and looked into the one to the left of it.

Grenade launchers. Beautiful, gorgeous, just _waiting_ for me grenade launchers.

I walked towards a smaller one, a model that was a rifle attachment. Picking it up, I took note of the model and put it back down. There were some ten other brands, but I walked out of the aisle and past the rifle racks. Entering the aisle to the right, I was greeted with a sight that stopped me dead in my tracks, again.

Anti-tank _missile launchers_.

Sweet shiitake mushrooms.

Shelves upon shelves upon _shelves_ of them.

On the rack to my left, there were mines, but I turned my attention back to the launchers. I reached down and lifted one out of a waist-high crate, FGM-148 Javelin stenciled onto the side. Bree walked in, messing with a small S&W pistol. I turned towards her, feeling my throat constrict. I cleared my throat, but all I got was a high-pitched squeak. Bree looked up at me as I spoke.

"Are you _sure_ we're allowed to take these?"

Bree tilted her head and shrugged. "Yeah… do you think this sai goes with my outfit?" She placed the pointy steel weapon against her pant leg and furrowed her brows in contemplation.

I muttered something noncommittal and continued to stare at the launcher in my hands. Katy walked into the aisle, stopped, then shook her head as she walked out whilst muttering about gun users all being the same under her breath.

* * *

Two hours later, Katy had the list she wanted. Bree was staring over her shoulder and pointing out names while Katy made little marks on the paper. I stood off to the side, wandering around the aisle displaying the pistols. We had taken two launchers and ignored the mines, but Katy had written down a request for twenty M-16 A4 models to be reserved for tomorrow, along with three grenade launchers, three flare launchers, five mini Uzis, four antigrav equipment carriers, and several UAV launchers, along with ammunition and clip requests for each weapon.

Bree lifted a clipboard from the wall and began scribbling something on the paper. I walked over and took a quick look at the page, which was rapidly filling with statistics on weight and pounds per person. Bertrand snorted awake, then moved under my hood and let out a muffled squeak. Right on cue, my stomach growled.

Katy looked up from her paper and frowned at me while Bree giggled. "I need a few more minutes… Are you sure that you can keep that bat quiet until we get the food?"

I nodded and walked down the aisle, browsing through the racks. "You heard the girl, B. Make one noise and she'll make your life _very_ miserable."

I felt the bat shake in response, along with some quiet clicks. "I know _that_, now stop it. She'll just give _me_ grief."

A squeak of acknowledgement, then the bat fell still again. I smiled and pulled a small nickel-finish Ruger off of the wall, inspecting the sights and balance. Sighing, I put it back and picked up another handgun with a more tactically logical blackened finish. My eyes strayed back to the gun with the nickel finish. I noticed with some interest that it was a Ruger P89. I looked at the gun in my hands, then back to the one on the wall.

It was so _nice_…

I pulled it off the rack and called over to Katy to add another serial number to her list.

* * *

A shadowy form stealthily walked into the elevator and waved its hand, sparkly trailing behind. The lift began to descend, the figure waiting patiently for the cage to stop moving.

A cold blast of air blew through the mesh floor.

The lift stopped descending and opened, allowing the figure to creep through and glance around the hidden room. He, for the figure was a he, walked towards the filled tubes containing green fluid in the corner, several Sues and Stus occupying about half of them floated in various states of dissection. The figure became slightly nauseated, as the dissections displayed the imperfections of each character to his trained eye. He walked over to the tank holding a fox Sue, untouched. The Sue stirred weakly, sensing one of her own kind nearby. The Stu grinned; she had not succumbed to the Slayers yet. He closed his eyes and sent a tendril of thought towards the Sue, quieting her.

_Greetings, Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon, mysterious Marlfox of the Redwalls._

The fox-Sue slowly opened her eyes, glowing an eerie green as she fought through the haze of the mako tank.

_You… I know that voice… Please… tell me what… my lord asks…of me…_

_Hush, young one. Our time is short. As of now, _they_, know that you are awake, my dear._

_Can... you not… free… me?_

_This anti-sparkly of theirs, it is debilitating. I can hardly keep my form coherent enough to talk to you, even with all my power. This world, it is not gentle to our kind. But you must listen carefully to what I have to tell you._

_I shall… follow you… to the… death, my liege…_

_Sylver Shayde Furshyne Starlyte Juskadon, I knew you would be strong when I made you. You will be freed once I find a way to combat this anti-sparkly of theirs, and then I shall make them __PAY__ for what they have done to us._

_My king, what… would you want… me to do…_

_Survive. Stave off the mind-numbing effects of their anti-sparkling liquids until the time is nigh. You will surely be rewarded, and you will come out of this experience even stronger than before._

_I will… do…_

The fox-Sue's eyes rolled back into her head as electricity arced through her holding cell. The shadowy figure jumped back gracefully, rushing into an air vent, the grille coming off easily in his strong hands.

_I shall return for you, my sweet…_

He slipped through the air vent, which refastened itself into the ceiling with a rush of sparkly, leaving no trace of his visit except for a blaring alarm and the frantic shouting of the scientists washing over the ever-alert ears of the unconscious Fox-Sue.

* * *

The commander lazily walked away from the counter, her steaming designer coffee radiating waves of caffeinated goodness. She had just sat down and was taking the first sip when her phone vibrated. Sighing, she popped the lid back on her macchiato and pulled out her phone.

"Yeah, Jake?"

The tinny voice of her temporary secretary rang through the speaker, "We've got a situation here."

"What's up? Did the rookies blow up a toilet again?"

She heard Jake sigh and move some papers around, "I wish. There was someone, or something, in the science department."

The commander froze, and then walked to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, "…This'd better be a bad joke, Jake…"

"I'm dead serious. The science department found traces of sparkly in the elevator and the air vent."

The commander ran a hand through her hair, running the blueprint of the underground building through her head, "…Where did the trail end?"

She heard a computer keyboard clattering in the background, "That's just it. We couldn't find any trail, just the two places where the Sue used its' sparkly."

"Order a search on the rest of the vents, the Sue had to have used sparkly to get out again."

"Already did, and they can't find anything. They even checked the vents for sparkly traces, and for large masses blocking the air flow. Nothing."

The commander paced in the confined space, tapping her hand against her thigh in an agitated beat, "I'll be right down. Start a lockdown of everything within the hour. Call all of the kids on the surface back down, it shouldn't take too long since they have a one-mile radius. I need you to get me a list of credible alibis, along with security footage. Call a meeting with the head scientists and chiefs of security in room 19-D, floor 35. Also, anti-sparkly and garlic the lift, and see if you can get the science department to do a full-base sparkly scan. We need to keep that thing contained, and if it hadn't harmed my troops yet, there's a reason for it."

"Will do."

"Jake."

"Yeah, boss?"

"Be sure to keep your head down, this meeting's gonna get _very_ ugly…"

* * *

Bree, Katy and I sat in our room around the table in our really comfortable high backed black rolling chairs. Bertrand lay on my bed, sprawled on his back and snoring in little squeaks.

Katy had somehow pilfered twenty personnel files from the secretaries, each corresponding to a name Katy had circled on her list earlier. These were in a pile on the center of the table.

"…Could you tell me why you stole the files from the secretaries in the first place?"

Katy looked at me innocently, "The printout didn't have all the info I needed."

She looked a little _too_ relaxed to be believed, but I didn't push the issue. I rifled through the stack, pulling out my name and one more of some other girl whose picture seemed familiar to me.

I flipped my file open first, scanning through the first page. I stopped upon coming to my EP rating. "Bree? Katy?"

They both turned to look at me. I pointed to my astronomical EP tally. As one, the twins grabbed their files and opened them, eyes coming to rest on their stats.

Katy grinned. "Nice… ours just doubled from that last mission…"

I shrugged, still seeing dollar signs dance in front of my eyes, "Well, at least the rest of those missing cards were tallied…" I closed my file and set it on the other side of the table, over a piece of paper marked 'D'. The next file was labeled 'Tessa Anderson', and classified her as a spear-using hand-to hand specialist with decent aim when using a firearm.

Bree looked over at the file and frowned. "Katy, do we _really_ have to have Missy Prissy on the team?"

"Stop it, Bree. Remember the minister said it's ungodly to hold grudges against your neighbor."

"How can you say that? She pranked-"

"DON'T say it… Just… don't." Katy took a deep breath, pinching her forehead, "That's behind us now, and we _need her on the team_."

"…Fine…"

I shrugged and put her file over mine, grabbing another one. "This one says that he's a scouting specialist…"

Katy looked over at my file, reading the name and smirking. "Oh, Johnny. He's quite resilient, and an excellent scout when he's not getting beaten up, you know."

"…_That_ Johnny?"

Katy grinned and nodded. "Yes, _that_ Johnny."

I, however, was slightly surprised. "…Small world."

"You'd better believe it."

"…Next file, then?"

"Go ahead." I dropped the file on pile 'B' and picked up a file labeled 'Dean Morrison'. "This one's an unarmed combat specialist with a well-rounded training in firearms… again…"

Katy and Bree replied without looking away from browsing through their files. "D-Pile."

I dropped it onto the pile and grabbed another, going through about three more. According to the twins, we would be working with several kinds of specialists, snipers, scouts, and _model plane enthusiasts_ of all things. Katy assured me that it would all pan out on the field.

"But what are they _there_ for?"

"Piloting the UAV's."

I was still confused. "The whatch-a-ma-calls-it?"

"…Its short for unmanned aerial vehicle."

_I need more _in_-for-ma-_tion_, please._ "…Used for…?"

"It's like a kamikaze plane, but no one's in it. Shouldn't you know this already?"

"I didn't take the class."

"...Never mind then."

As we cleaned up the files so Katy could return them to the secretaries, Bree mused aloud, "I'm really excited about tomorrow. We don't usually use this much artillery on a mission…"

"Really? I thought you guys did this all the time?"

"Nah, the commander usually complains about expenses whenever we go into a fandom with guns blazing. She never seems to mind when our turn for the Twilight fandom rolls around, though…" Bree hummed softly, messing with something in her locker. "Meh, in the end, _c'est le guerre._"

"Huh?"

She turned around and gave me a cheerful grin, "This. Is. _War_."

* * *

Twenty minutes later found us back inside cell fifty-nine, bored out of our minds. A full scale lockdown had been called for some reason, leaving us with time to kill without any internet access.

Bree had resumed trying to soap on her shadow, while Katy had pulled out all of her spare knives to sharpen them. I was trying to puzzle out how to open an Otherpath portal, but was having trouble focusing since Bertrand decided that now was the best time to start complaining for food again.

I sighed and stood up, walking over to my locker for the third time since the lockdown. Rifling through the top drawer installed in the back, I pulled out a red apple and tossed it onto my bed. Bertrand hungrily descended upon it, wet munching sounds emanating through the room. I shut the locker door and paced around, eventually getting bored and pulling the Ruger P89 out of its holster. I placed it on the table, going to work on disassembling it.

I was startled by a sudden yell from the bathroom, causing me to drop my gun's barrel with a clatter. This in turn caused Katy to drop the knife she was working on, cutting her finger on the sharpened edge.

"YES! I DID IT! I DID IT!"

Bree flung the bathroom door open, waltzing out in satisfaction while leaving a trail of suds behind stared at her, wide-eyed.

"You actually…"

"Yep! Soaped it on!" It was about this time that I heard something squeak and pop. Then, Bree just didn't have a shadow attached to her feet anymore. I blinked and looked around wildly, finally spotting her silhouette stuck to the ceiling.

The thing had the audacity to actually _wave_ at me.

A wild and rowdy chase resumed, causing things to be alternately scattered, dropped, grabbed, pounced on, and thrown. Eventually, Katy produced a pair of flashlights which we used to herd the irritated shadow back into the bathroom. Bree shut the door behind her, leaving Katy and me to wait outside. A few minutes later, a bedraggled Bree walked out with her shadow stuck firmly to her feet. She smiled at us wearily and staggered to her bed. Katy shrugged and walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth. There being only one sink, I waited on my bed.

Bertrand, the ever-patient role model, crawled out from his temporary hidey-hole under the bed with his apple core. He offered it to me, which I accepted and threw into the trash bin next to the door. With a contented sigh, Bertrand flapped up onto the bars at the foot of my bed and latched on. I sighed, gathering up the pieces of the gun and the scattered throwing knives.

The siren outside sounded an all clear; the doors up and down the hallway unlatching as the lockdown was lifted. I walked over to my bed, listening to the water run as Katy finished brushing her teeth.

* * *

The next day, we lined up inside of the launch pad in preparation for our mission. Twenty others stood around, quietly waiting for the go-ahead. Everyone was loaded down with packs of water and ammunition, each holding an assault rifle strapped around their neck. The small antigrav carriers floated placidly at arm level in each of the four corners, marked with a corresponding A, B, C, or D. Carrier B was noticeably smaller than the rest, being only about the size of a briefcase, while the rest were about three times as wide.

Katy and Bree oddly held the same expression of seriousness as they turned to face our team. Katy spoke first. "Organize into teams, all of the snipers in Team Alpha, Scouts into team Bravo, remote controlled UAV and Anti-Tank missile techs into Team Cain, and the rest into team Delta."

Andre walked to the far left corner of the room. The rest of the group split up into their respective teams as I walked over towards "Delta corner" as Bree had dubbed it. With a resounding chorus of chirps, everyone activated their headsets and waited.

Bree called for everyone's attention. "Keep those radios on at all time. The watches will monitor and display your position so the chance of friendly fire is minimized. There is going to be no chance of taking a break once we set up our formation. We're following the strategies we discussed in the board room, and if anyone messes up, we're _all_ dead. _Capiche_?"

Everyone nodded, the two scouts pulling out greenish brown paint and smearing their faces with it, then shrugged into their their digi-camo jackets. The two snipers gathered their specialized rifles and lifted them in a salute. The seven techs in team Cain readied their rifles, while the remaining nine in team Delta lined up in the standard plothole deployment formation.

"Oh-kay team! T-minus twenty! Nineteen! Eighteen! Seventeen!"

Andre looked back at me with a reassuring smile. "Ready?"

I shrugged, adrenaline beginning to cause my heard to pound and eyes to widen. "As I'll ever be."

"Eleven! Ten! Nine! Eight!"

I shifted my pack on my shoulder to a slightly more comfortable position, heart racing.

"Three! Two! ONE! GO! GO! GO!"

One after the other, everyone jumped through the plothole.


End file.
